Finding Family
by Dr. Scott
Summary: COMPLETED!!
1. Finding Family, part 1

Disclaimer:  I do not own The Pretender and I am not getting any money from this.  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part One

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Interstate 59, East of Houston, Texas, Wednesday Morning, 7:45 AM

Low rumble and rocking motion had lulled him into a deep and much needed sleep throughout the cross-country bus ride, and so the sounds of rustling as other passengers gathered their things and tucked newspapers, books and knitting projects away barely registered to his consciousness.  Instead, it brought him up to a state of REM sleep, and as recent events replayed in the twisted, magnification of his dream he moaned softly.

She stalked him like a cat.  Her taunt muscles barely concealed by sleek black clothes and her dark hair blown up and around her face like a lion's mane—both magnificent and terrifying at the same time.  He turned to run, but somehow he could still see her face in that strange way that dreams have of allowing you to see all the angles at once.  Suddenly the Other was at the other end of the street, and now he wanted to run back to her like a naughty child to his mother.  His mother.  His mother.  Her flame colored hair floated around her and she shouted his name.  He hit the ground in a roll, and now cat-like himself he came up and ran across the road ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder.  He could still see Her face though.  She was in shock as a man in black knocked her to the side roughly…as she fell…as the gun went off in slow motion.

"Hey, Buddy, you ah'right?" a voice said and as someone shook his left arm it caused his right shoulder to bump up against the window frame.  The sharp stabbing pain woke him instantly, but he was momentarily disoriented by being in the bus.  He sighed and nodded slowly at his seat mate.

I made it.  I got away again, he thought to himself.  But I need to stop and do something about this shoulder.  He was afraid this was bigger than he could handle himself and he was in no position to trust anyone.  He sat up and blinked out the window at the dense set of skyscrapers twinkling in the morning sunlight as the bus pulled into downtown Houston.  He knew it was a big town, maybe he could get lost in it for a while.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, 9:35 AM

Sydney stood to the side and watched the twins bicker once again.  While they both possessed sharp, good looks and high intelligence, they could not have been more different in personalities.  Oh, some would say she was cold, but Sydney knew her demeanor was a hard shell she had built to protect her true self.  But he, on the other hand, was icy down to his murderous heart.

"Look, Sis, you warned him.  You called out his name.  It's your fault he got away.  Again.  And you know it!" Lyle exclaimed angrily.

"I had everything perfectly in control until you and all those sweepers showed up.  It was the confusion they created pointing guns everywhere that allowed Jarod to slip away in those sewer lines," Miss Parker retorted.

"Enough!" The deep voice of their father silenced them, and they turned to face him.  She more contrite than he.  "The fact remains," he enunciated clearly, "that Jarod remains on the outside and I want him returned back to the Centre where he belongs.  Lyle, this is the job given to your sister.  I have given you other projects that should be your priority," he said firmly giving his son a knowing look.

Miss Parker turned slightly to give Lyle a smirk.

"And Angel," he paused to get her full attention, "I want to see results, or you can be given other projects too," he growled at her.

"Yes, Daddy," she replied meekly.

"And where were you when all this happened," Mr. Parker demanded turning his attention to Sydney.

"I…I was here at the Centre," Sydney replied slowly.

"Are you not part of the team assigned to catch Jarod?  Why weren't you doing your job?" Mr. Parker demanded.

"It was my idea," Miss Parker rushed to answer.  "You see Jarod always seems to know we're all coming and I thought maybe it was the fact that we traveled as a team that was tipping him off.  Stalking him one-on-one to catch him off guard seemed..."

Mr. Parker interrupted her.  "Never go after him alone.  You take a sweeper or your team with you.  He is dangerous and I want him back here where we can control him.  Now, go to work," and he dismissed them all with a wave of his hand.

Houston Texas, 9:15 AM

Jarod found himself on another bus.  He'd thought about taking a cab, but he didn't know where he wanted to go.  He couldn't very well ask to be taken to the seedy side of town to a free clinic that will treat gun shot wounds with no questions asked if offered enough money to keep the free clinic doors open.

He'd taken his time getting off the Greyhound Bus so that he could carry his duffel bag and not be jostled by the crowd.  He had sufficiently tuned out his brain so that the pain in his shoulder was a dull throb, had made his way out to the street and had caught the first local city bus that had come along.

It was one of those clear blue, not a cloud in the sky kind of days that come right after a cold front blows through.  The sun shone bright and sparkling on a city that had been washed clean with rain the day before.  Fortunately for him, it was cold enough and breezy enough that wearing a thick, leather jacket to cover his wound did not look out of place in this ordinarily warm, Southern city.  His plan, if you could call it that, was to ride the bus until he felt like he was in a likely part of town and then follow his instincts.

The bus worked its way fitfully through downtown seeming to stop at every single street corner.  The agonizing slowness forced him to study his fellow passengers and he played mini-pretends to imagine what they were thinking and feeling that day.  The years of training throughout his childhood and as a young adult were so ingrained that he didn't even realize he had slipped into pretend mode in order to distract his mind from the pain in his right shoulder.

Two short, round, middle aged Hispanic woman got on together flashing well worn monthly bus passes.  They looked tired but happy as they chatted in Spanish and he knew they were returning home after their early morning jobs cleaning offices.

A man in a neat but a little out of date suit with lapels just a little too wide flashed his bus pass and sat comfortably on the sunlit side a few seats in front of Jarod.  Then he pulled out a tidy stack of papers that he read and thumbed back and forth.  Jarod knew he was returning from some early morning meeting and rode the bus on the principle of being Earth friendly. 

A well dressed business woman got on the bus and sat down right up front, clearly uncomfortable with the idea as she fumbled for the exact change.  Looking at her extremely high-heeled shoes, he wasn't surprised when she got off after only five blocks.  She didn't want to walk even that far.  But that made him think of Parker.  How did she run after him in those shoes of hers?

Two slacker looking youths got off the bus slouching past in their baggy jeans and oversized t-shirts, and Jarod watched as they crossed the street and over to a big building at the next block where he could just make out the end of a sign "—ic Library".  They were clearly smarter than they wanted their peers to think.

Then a young woman with a child in an umbrella stroller got on.  She deftly lifted the stroller up the steps, swiveled it sharply and let it drop down hard on the aisle as she reached into a large bag and pulled out a wallet and flashed her bus id.  She was a little overweight, and her hair was stringy like she hadn't bathed in a day or two.  She could have been pretty except for the sour expression on her face as she pushed the stroller with one hand and flopped in the seat right across from Jarod.  She pulled the stroller in behind her leaving the child still strapped in and facing out towards Jarod.  She tossed her big bag on the seat next to her, pulled out a stack of magazines, selected one with movie star pictures on the cover and began reading totally ignoring the child.

Jarod looked down at the little boy in the stroller.  He looked about 3 years old and his big brown eyes looked curiously up at Jarod's sympathetic eyes.  He was wearing a long sleeve shirt with obvious stains of at least this morning's breakfast on it and long pants and socks, but no shoes or jacket.  Jarod thought this was strange since it was rather cool in the 60's, but he thought how she ignored the child even stranger.

"Excuse me, ma'am," the bus driver called out.  "You can't leave the stroller like that.  It blocks the aisle and it might roll if I have to stop suddenly."

"All right," she replied in an exasperated voice.  Slapping her magazine down, she leaned over to unbuckle the boy and set him unceremoniously onto the edge of the seat.  Then she pushed the stroller back out and flipping a latch on the back, folded it in two and slid it under the seat.  Meanwhile the little boy was looking in his mother's big bag and as he pushed it around to look inside, the heavy bag fell on her shoulder where she was leaning over to shove the stroller.  "You leave that alone!" she scolded and slapped the boy's hand much harder than the bag had bumped onto her.

He immediately began to cry and she responded by sitting back in her seat and picking her magazine again.  Jarod called out softly to the child, "Hey, little guy, its okay," he soothed, "look down here on the floor."

The sunlight cast sharp shadows on the aisle and Jarod used his left hand to make a dog shadow puppet that he caused to leap and nip around on the bumps of corrugated steel as he playfully barked.  The little boy stooped crying and watched happily, looking up at Jarod with a grin and trails of tears still on his cheeks.

"You got kids?" the young woman asked.

"No," Jarod answered.  "What's his name?"

"This here's Cody, junior.  And he's his father's boy too.  Gonna have that red-neck temper."

"Excuse me?" replied Jarod curiously.

"Oh, you know," she replied trying to smile and bat her eyes at him.  "Everyone treats you like a princess when you get married, and a queen when you're expecting and you get lots of presents and visits when they're cute babies, but before you know it, they leave you high and dry with a Terrible Two year old that turns into a three year old with temper tantrums."

While they were talking the little boy had turned his attention to the stack of magazines and was pushing the ones on top off to the floor one by one.  "Ya' see what I mean?" she exclaimed and again slapped his little hand.  Then leaving him crying once again, she leaned over to retrieve the magazines.

Suddenly the bus hit a pot hole and everyone bounced up and down.  Little Cody being right on the edge bounced up and slid over towards the steel aisle floor.  Without thinking, Jarod stretched out both arms and caught the boy so that rather than landing on his head, the boy landed on his knees bumping his shins rather hard on the floor and evoking a fresh set of tears.

The sudden, swift movement and the 30 pound weight was beyond the limits that Jarod's shoulder could endure, he felt the wound snap open and warm, wetness begin to spread across his shirt.  He let the boy go suddenly and groaned in pain as he clutched his own arm to his body.

The mother snatched the child up, kissing and petting his hair, finally frightened for his safety.  She loved the child;  she just didn't know any better how to care for him.  As the boy's cries turned into hiccups she looked over at Jarod to thank him and saw that he had his jaw clenched and eyes shut tight in pain.  "Are you okay?  Thank you for catching Cody.  Can I help you?"

"Yes," he said with clenched teeth and giving her one of his intense, penetrating stares.  He took a deep breath and straightened, "Cody acts up and gets angry because he is bored.  I can just tell by looking in his eyes.  He is a special boy and obviously very smart, but unless you help him learn, he will entertain himself by torturing you.  The choice is yours.  Pay attention to him before he acts up and keep him busy learning things, or pay attention to him afterwards and only reinforce his bad behavior.  Do you want a lawyer or a criminal for a son?"

"I…I want him to have a good life of course," she stammered.

"Then you can help me by helping yourself to become a new woman.  Be his mother and take care of him the way he deserves to be taken care of," Jarod demanded.

The young woman nodded wordlessly and the boy clutched in her arms looked up happily and expectantly.  Jarod pulled himself to standing and the pull cord to signal the bus driver to stop.  He could feel the blood seeping down his shirt and he had to find a bathroom quickly and put on a new bandage.  Steeling himself, he picked up his bag and braced himself as the bus lurched to a stop at an intersection.  Nodding to the woman one last time, he couldn't help but smile as little Cody waved one of his plump hands and childishly lisped, "Bye-Bye."


	2. Chance Encounter

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Two

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, 10:30 Wednesday

Miss Parker paced in her office, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms.  She found it helped her think, and at this point, she didn't know what to think.  She kept replaying the scene in her mind.  How she had shot Jarod.  She hadn't meant to, of course, but she had seen him jerked forward by the impact and there had been more than enough blood evidence to confirm it when they had found the ladder down the sewer.  The sewer was just the place for that lab-rat part of her snarled.  But another part, a very secret, quiet part was glad he had gotten away.  He had been magnificent as usual—rolling with impact, running when anyone else would have lain there in shock, and eluding their search once again.  She had imagined herself catching him and bringing Jarod back to the Centre, but she had never thought she'd shoot him.  Oh, she may have threatened to but that wasn't her style.  She remembered the few times she had shot men and it had always been in self-defense.  Somehow shooting Jarod in the back just didn't seem fair to the rules of this cat and mouse game they had been playing the last few years.

"M-miss Parker?" a nervous voice interrupted her reverie and she looked up to see Broots leaning his head in the crack of her door.

"What?" she snapped.

"I have the lab results from the blood samples you brought back.  It's definitely Jarod's blood.  And I think I have a lead from the project he was working on there in Durham."

"Well, come in.  Let's see it."

"I got to thinking, maybe if we could find his lair, we might be able to recover the DSA.  If he was injured and in a hurry to escape, then maybe he left it behind.  You know that would go a long way to…"

"The lead, Broots, what about the lead?" she interrupted.

"Oh, yeah," he continued in his breathless way, "Well, we already knew that he had been posing as a professor at Duke University since the beginning of the spring term, but it seemed strange that he only taught these afternoon chemistry lab classes.  I did a search for new utility connections, you know, phone, electricity and all."  Broots walked past her and around to the computer on her desk, quickly typing to access the information he'd found.  "Look, here's the request for power to be turned on for a small office building."

Parker leaned over his shoulder and squinted at the rows of information, trying to focus on the one he was pointing to.  "Spade Investigations?" she wondered.

"Look here.  The date of the request is the day before he started work at the University.  And this building is zoned as a business with an upstairs apartment.  It appears he was working a second pretend as a private investigator at the same time in the nearby town of Raleigh, and maybe that's where he is hiding."

"Find Sydney.  We're all going back to North Carolina," she declared.

Fiesta Grocery Store, Houston, Texas, 11:15 Wednesday

Jarod opened the bathroom door slowly and looked down the short hall to see if anyone was looking right at him.  He saw the cart he had left out on the main aisle and sighed with relief.  Carrying his duffel with his good left hand, he walked slowly to the cart and carefully set the bag on the bottom of the cart trying not to bump or twist his right shoulder.  He had put on all the rest of the gauze and bandages he had and had changed his shirt.  The rinsed one was rolled in paper towels and tucked in with his few other possessions including the DSA player and the recordings of his life at the Centre.  The Centre wanted that back almost as much as him because it was the proof of their atrocious treatment of him, and he had gone to a lot of trouble to keep it with him.

He looked out down the main back aisle of the store.  Fortunately it was a quiet weekday morning with only a few shoppers and they were all focused on their lists and scanning the shelves.  He had been lucky that the bus stop had been across the street from a corner grocery store.  He wouldn't have been able to walk far otherwise.  He leaned on the cart handle as a wave of pain and nausea swept over him.  He needed to get some supplies and risk a cab ride, at least to a motel where he could rest.

He was about to set off in search of the first aide supplies when a disturbance to his left down the main produce aisle caught his attention.  A cascade of oranges came rolling off a bin in the center dropping on and around a small girl and scattering all about the floor.  He watched as a woman hurriedly pushed a cart with a baby boy sitting in the child seat over from the side bins.  She was petite, a little plump from motherhood, but still quite pretty.  She the loveliest red curly hair that reminded him with a pang of sadness of his own lost mother.

"Oh, Kimie," she sighed with dismay and knelt down on one knee to the little girl.  She reached out for the girl's hand and Jarod half expected her to slap the child the way he had seen the young woman on the bus discipline her son.  But this woman only held it then looked the girl right in the eyes.

"You wanted to help Mommy didn't you?" she asked and little Kimie nodded with a stricken face, tears clearly threatening to cascade as freely as the oranges just had.  "Sweetie, you have to take the oranges from the top.  See?  These ones on the bottom hold those ones up.  Just like your blocks," the mother explained pointing.  "Scamper around right quick and pick these up and we'll do it right, okay?"

The little girl started bringing oranges to her mother who straightened up and began setting them back on the display bin.  She took a moment to check on the baby in the basket and then took another three oranges from the little girl.  As they worked to restore the stack of oranges, she sang a silly song to the children to the tune of Humpty Dumpty.

"Humpty Orange fell out of the bin,

Humpty Orange couldn't get back in,

All the sweet Williams and all the quick Kim's

Helped Mommy put him away again."

Jarod grinned at the quick wit and resourcefulness of the woman as the oranges were quickly restacked.  Two had rolled around the corner toward him and he felt he had to acknowledge her somehow.  He pushed his cart back down the aisle and leaning carefully over to retrieve the oranges he felt a wave of dizziness pass over him.  Straightening, he leaned on the cart until the fuzzy, gray spots cleared from his eyes and he took a deep breath.  It would do no good to pass out here he reprimanded himself sternly.

Meanwhile, the lovely woman had picked up the girl and was helping her pick oranges from the top of the pile and put them into a cellophane bag.  She turned as he approached and looked at him suspiciously.  He realized he probably did look rather ragged and didn't blame her.  Nevertheless, he held out the oranges to the little girl and spoke in his quietest, kindest voice, "You did a good job picking up.  Here's two more of those escaping little rascals."

The little girl giggled and took the oranges out of his hand, stacked them carefully back on the top of the bin, and beamed triumphantly at him.  He grinned back, crows feet crinkling in the corners of his eyes and his dimple even showing through the stubble of his two day old beard.  Still smiling he looked over at her mother who was studying him curiously.

"And you handled that so well.  Keep doing what you are doing.  You're a great mother to these kids," he said earnestly.

"Thank you," she said, nodding a little embarrassed.

Jarod nodded in return and turned his cart to walk back to the main aisle.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, Noon, Wednesday

Miss Parker stepped impatiently into Sydney's office.  Broots was already there standing in front of Sydney's desk, his hands frozen in mid air gesture as he clearly had stopped talking the second she had opened the door.  "Well?" she snapped, "What's the hold up?"

"I'm not coming with you this time, Miss Parker," Sydney said in a soft voice.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Your tactics have gotten much more aggressive since your brother joined the Centre.  You are more focused on competing with him, than with bringing Jarod home."

"Since when is the Centre home?" she sneered.

"I will stay here and wait for Jarod to call in.  I want to know if he's alright," Sydney continued ignoring her comment.

"Fine.  Come on, Broots.  Let's go catch the injured lab rat so we can bring him 'home' to his zoo keeper," she replied turning angrily and swept back out the door.  She stopped halfway down the hall to wait for Broots to come out of the office as a wave of guilt washed over her.  Why did I say that, she asked herself.  I don't want to hurt Sydney's feelings.  He's the only one who has always been on my side since I was a girl.  Well, not the only one, she admitted to herself.

Then Broots walked up and interrupted her reverie.  "I'm ready, Miss Parker."  She led the way out to the small private airfield and the Centre jet to take them to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Fiesta Grocery Store, Houston, Texas,  11:45 Wednesday

Jarod pushed his cart slowly partly because he was feeling weaker and partly because he had to look down each aisle to find his favorite foods.  He had decided to hole up in a motel and wanted enough supplies for a week.  He had put bottled water, crackers, cans of whipped cheese spread, boxes of Twinkies, and a bunch of boxes of instant soup into the cart.  On the aisle with the plastic cups and spoons, he'd even found a small coffee maker so he could make hot water.

He had paused to rest near the middle of the store by an aisle of frozen foods and watched as the red haired woman and her children shopped.  Her cart was now full of bagged fruits and vegetables.  The little girl was riding cross-legged on the bottom of the cart and the baby was teething on a little carrot.  She breezed along the back refrigerator section pausing only to pick up a gallon of milk.  She turned the cart down an aisle, only to almost immediately appear with a bottle of catsup now on board.  She clearly had the locations of all the items available in the store memorized.  All the while she was singing little nursery rhymes to keep them entertained.

As they came up to him, he smiled again.  As she smiled back, he noticed her incredibly clear blue eyes as they twinkled at him.  "Not the healthiest selection you have there," she teased him.

He shrugged, "Perhaps, but they require minimal cooking."

She nodded amiably and pushed on down the frozen food aisle.

Jarod took a deep breath and forced himself to continue.  He needed to find first aide and some pain medicine and get out of here.  The second to the last aisle finally had what he was looking for.  He put in both a bottle of Tylenol and Advil since he knew he could double dose himself without the two different medications interfering with each other.  He put all the boxes of large gauze bandages they had in his basket, as well has the adhesive tape and antibiotic ointments.  He was just contemplating what other supplies he might need, when the woman turned on to the aisle from the other end and stopped at the baby supplies arranged down there.

"Slide out sweetie.  Mommy needs to put the diapers down there," she called out.

The little girl did as she was told and while her mother began arranging the diaper packages she went skipping down the aisle singing a nonsense song, "Cree-craw-toads-foot-geese-walk-bare-foot.  Cree-craw-toads-foot-geese-walk-bare-foot."

Jarod froze in amazement.  He knew that song.  From when he was little.  He thought he had made it up himself.  He used to sing it to himself at night when he had been first taken to the Centre.  He hadn't thought about it in years.

He squatted down to look at the little girl and sang the song along with her as she skipped up the aisle to him, "Cree-craw-toads-foot-geese-walk-bare-foot."  She grinned at him in appreciation that he was playing along with her.

The mother quickly pushed her cart up to his cart and looked strangely down at him.  "How do you know that song?"  she asked.  "That's just nonsense my grandmother used to sing to me.  It's not one of the regular nursery rhymes.  Believe me I know, I've read them all.  How do you know it?" she repeated.

"I've always known it since I was little.  I thought I made it up myself," he said shaking his head in amazement.

The little girl was just tall enough to see into his cart and asked with concern, "Did you get a really big owie?  I got a bad owie once when I fell out of my red wagon."

Jarod nodded slowly at her and reached up to the side of the cart to pull himself to standing.  An intense wave of dizziness passed over him and he slumped on the cart to support his weight as the gray spots slowly faded from his eyes.

"Are you okay?  Do you need help?" the woman asked with concern.

Jarod smiled weakly at her.  "I just need some rest.  Can you recommend a motel close by here?"

"Hmmm, the Heights is a really old neighborhood.  It's mostly little houses.  There are a couple of bed-and-breakfast inns in big Victorian houses on Heights Boulevard."

He shook his head, "No, I prefer more privacy."

"I guess you'd have to head out down to the Interstate and probably away from downtown to find one of the big chain motels," she replied.  "Do you need directions?"

"I'll catch a cab," he replied.

She looked at him quizzically.  "If you don't have a car, how did you get here?"

"I took a bus," he replied simply.

While they were talking the baby had gotten bored and had managed to squirm his legs up onto the seat and was pushing himself up on the basket handle.  As he teetered precariously over the edge, Jarod sprang to action and for the second time that day caught a baby before he could hit the floor.  Again the action strained Jarod's hurt shoulder and he fell slowly with the boy to the floor moaning softly.

"Oh my God!" the woman exclaimed and bent down to the two of them.  She scooped the baby out of Jarod's arms, the little scamp merely giggling with this new fun way to play on a cart.  "Maybe I should call an ambulance for you," she said looking worried.

"No, No!" Jarod replied a little panicked.  He forced himself to take a few deep breaths.  "I just need to get out of here and rest."

The little girl came over to his side and placed a small, soft cool hand on his forehead, "Mommy, you should check him with the click-click.  He's getting the fevers."

"Look here, ah, what is your name?"

"My name is Jarod," he replied.

"Nice to meet you, Jarod," she smiled warmly and held out her hand, "Mine's Emily.  Emily Brooks."

He took her hand and stared at her in amazement.  Could it be?  How could she know that song?  Could she be his long sought after sister, Emily?

But she misunderstood his look.  "I know.  It's pretty old fashioned, but it's a family name.  I can't believe I'm doing this, but why don't you come to my house?" she invited.

"No, I couldn't.  I'm alright."

"No, you're not alright.  I don't go around inviting perfect strangers to my house you know.  I live only two blocks from here and you can rest all afternoon.  It's almost nap time anyway.  You can find a motel later when you feel stronger.  Somehow I know I can trust you.  Kim has a good sense about people and I do too.  You know the old saying about old dogs and children, they can see through to your soul."

Jarod stared straight in her clear blue eyes and he felt like he could see into her soul too.  He had to go with his gut on this one and it was telling him to trust her.  So he nodded once in agreement, and she smiled back nodding herself.

"Okay, the logistics of getting out of here…" she murmured thinking out-loud to her self.  Emily let go of his hand and stood up with the baby putting him on her hip.  Then she reached her hand out for Jarod and helped pull him to his feet.  "I'm going to take you out to my car where you can sit down and then I'll come back and check out."

He swayed and leaned on the cart again as he adjusted to the standing position.

"Do you think you can walk?" she asked.

Clenching his teeth together, Jarod nodded.  I am not going to faint, he repeated to himself, and began shuffling along leaning on the cart.

"Hold on a minute," Emily said.  She set the baby in one corner of his basket and she quickly transferred all of his items on the top of her basket.  Then she picked up the little girl and set her in the cart next to her baby brother.  "Don't let him stand up, Kimie," she instructed the girl.

As luck would have it, a cashier was available when they walked up to the front of the store.  "Buenas dias, Yolanda," Emily said pleasantly as they approached.

"Buenas dias, Mrs. Brooks," the check out girl replied.

"I'm taking my friend out to the car with the kids.  Will you start checking out?  I'll be right back."

"Si, of course, Mrs." the girl replied.

Jarod walked along in a daze, concentrating on his steps as Emily took over the actual pushing of the cart.  The automatic doors opened as they stepped out and the brisk breeze brought him back more to his senses and the incredible throbbing pain in his shoulder.

They soon reached a large, brown older model town car and she quickly unlocked the passenger side.  Jarod slid gratefully on to the velour seat and leaned his head back on the headrest.  Emily opened the back door where two car seats were belted in, then proceeded to buckle in both children.  As she lifted his duffel bag and set it on the backseat floor board she could sense there was one large item in it shifting its balance.  She closed both doors and then went around to the driver side.  She turned the ignition enough to roll down the two front windows halfway and then cut it off again.

Jarod grabbed her wrist and for a split second she doubted the wisdom of her actions.  Who was this guy she was helping anyway and what sort of trouble was he in?

"Wait," he said letting go and reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a roll of cash.  He set it in his lap and struggled to pull two bills off with his left hand while his right arm lay uselessly in his lap.  "Here," he held out two hundred dollar bills, "use this to pay for everything."

She smiled at him, "I'll be right back.  You two be good," she added to the two small children and hurried back into the store.

The baby started fussing the minute she left, but little Kim scolded him, "Mommy said to be good."

"Let's sing to him," Jarod suggested.  "What does he like?"

"Twinkle, twinkle little star…" the girl began and Jarod sang along as best as he could.

In no time Emily was back opening the trunk and loading the bags in.  As she set them down, he could feel the car rock up and down on the shocks, causing a jolt of pain down his arm each time.  He leaned his head back grimacing as he endured it.

As she slid behind the wheel, she saw his pained expression and reached over to touch his good left arm.  "Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the emergency room?"

Jarod rolled his head to look at her with cloudy eyes, "Can't trust Them.  Only trust you," he said hoarsely.

She nodded and started the engine, "We'll be home in no time."


	3. Private I

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Three:  Private I

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

The Heights, Houston, Texas, Wednesday Afternoon

Emily Brooks walked back and forth from her car parked right by the front porch to the kitchen in the middle of the house.  She had unloaded kids, groceries, his bag and this strange man who passed in and out of consciousness as he lay on the couch.  She had put her groceries away and had sorted his items out into two bags of food and one of first aide supplies which she set by the couch near his bag.

The two small children were glued to a video of Barney she had put on to give her time to help this stranger.  What are you doing? She thought to herself.  You have no idea who he is or what he's done.  He might be dangerous.

She shook him gently and he roused groggily.  "Try to sit up a bit.  I brought you some water."

Jarod blinked and struggled to push up.  As he did, the movement strained his shoulder again and he cried out, but at least the sharp pain roused him somewhat.  The pretty, red haired woman reached out a cool hand and rested it gently on his forehead.  "I think you do have a fever.  Which of these do you want to take?" she asked holding up both bottles of pain reliever he had bought at the store where they had met.

"Four Advils to start.  They work faster," he replied hoarsely.

Emily opened the bottle, poured four tablets into her hand and held them out toward him but then just shook her head.  Instead, she reached a hand under his left arm and up to his neck holding him up and held the glass of water to his lips.  "Sip," she ordered and he did.  Then she placed the tablets one by one in his mouth and made him swallow them and more water each time.  Finally, when half the water was gone she laid him gently back on the cushion set on the arm of the couch.

"Okay, let me see this owie of yours, as Kimie would say," Emily said as she unzipped his jacket and folded the right half open.  "My God!" she exclaimed as she saw the dark red blood soaked through to his shirt.  "What happened to you?"

"She shot me…I never thought she would be the one to shoot me," he said sadly.

"I really should call an ambulance for you."

"No, no, then they will catch me," he ranted.

"Why?  What did you do?"

"I refused to work for them anymore.  I won't have the blood of innocents on my hands.  I ran away," he said so earnestly that any doubts of him being a criminal were erased.  "I need your help, please."

She stared into his dark brown eyes and nodded making up her mind.  "Let me see what we have here," she murmured.  She unbuttoned his shirt, folded back the right side and pulled back one corner of tape to lift the bandage.  Drawing in her breath sharply in a big gulp, she gently touched the wound and Jarod winced.  "This is an exit wound.  You were shot in the back, weren't you?" she asked.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked in amazement.

"Jarod, this is your lucky day.  I'm an MD/PhD.  Although I mostly did research, I did do the obligatory stint in the emergency room and I know how to treat this wound.  I'm sorry.  Catching Will obviously reopened it.  You really need some stitches to close this wound and help it heal."

Jarod stared at her in surprise.  He had underestimated this woman thinking she was just a mother.  He reminded himself not to judge people by their appearance too quickly.

"I know, I know," she laughed seeing his look.  "I really need a PhD for changing diapers.  A lot of friends think I'm crazy to stay home with the kids, but I'm happy with my choice."

"There's nothing more important than family," he declared in agreement and smiled.

"Okay, here's the plan.  You lie here a bit more while I put the kids down for their nap and I find my surgical instruments.  I bought my own set when I was doing research on mice.  You need to let that Advil get working before I start to stitch you up, because I don't have any anesthetic here."

Jarod nodded in understanding.  "I can stand the pain," he reassured her.  He had endured much worse torture at the hands of Lyle, and knew how to retreat into his own mind.  He closed his eyes and listened as she walked around to the back of the house where the children were.  He gazed out the window above the couch at the bright sunlight filtering through the bare limbs of a tree.  Despite the light, he felt his eye lids grow heavy as he was lulled to sleep too as she read a book aloud and sang some songs to the children.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday evening

Miss Parker stepped out of the rental car and swung her coat around her in a flourish.  She scowled pessimistically around her, certain that she was going to be one step behind Jarod again.  They were in old part of town where small office buildings were squeezed in with old brick apartments and many small shops on the ground floor of the buildings.  The street was busy with cars and pedestrians passing in both directions on their way home at the end of the day.  "Park somewhere close and get back here to help me search the place," she ordered Broots, who slid over to the driver side to do as she commanded.

She strode up the front door of the building and saw stenciled in neat, square letters Spade Investigations.  She tried the handle and it was locked.  Not an obstacle to her she grinned as she pulled a tool from her coat pocket and quickly picked the lock.

Opening the door, she walked over to a large desk at the back of the room, next to a filing cabinet.  She leaned over the desk to turn on the desk lamp and knocked over an envelope set leaning up against a stapler.  She picked up the envelope and as she turned it over was shocked to see it addressed to her, 'Miss Parker,' in Jarod's unmistakable neat handwriting.  She ripped the envelope open and unfolded the note inside.

She read:  'I need you to finish my work here.  You owe it to me.  You owe it to yourself.  I've been helping a college student named Amanda Blake find her mother.  She disappeared four years ago, but she is not dead as was originally believed.  Her mother's name is Helen Blake, but I think she changed her name from Eleanor Black.  I found out Eleanor worked at the Centre twenty years ago and left only two days after your own mother was shot.  Help Amanda find her mother.  She may be able to help you find out about your own mother.  Jarod.'

Broots walked in the front door as she reread the note for the third time.  "Miss Parker?" he asked wondering why she wasn't searching the place.

"Read this," she said handing Broots the note.

"Well, you did shoot him," observed Broots a moment later when he looked up from reading.

She was standing with her hands on her hips staring out the front window at the golden light of sunset, "I didn't mean to," she retorted defensively.

"If Jarod left this note, then I guess he didn't leave the DSA behind," Broots quickly deduced.

"Check upstairs anyway," Miss Parker nodded in agreement.  "I'll look through the desk and file cabinet.

While Broots trotted up the stairs, Parker took off her coat and laid it across the back of the chair.  She pulled open the drawers of the filing cabinet that were all empty except for one with only two files in it.  She laid them on the desk and sat down to read the computer print outs and handwritten notes that Jarod had made on the investigation so far.  A birth certificate, school enrollment and even a copy of an internal Centre employee application showed that Eleanor Black had existed until 1970 when her own mother, Catherine Parker, had been shot.  The picture on the Centre application showed a pretty brunette with glasses.  Then a copy of a driver's license from the summer of that year was of the same brunette although without glasses and now with the name, Helen White.

The front door opened and a coed walked in.  She wore jeans, a university logo t-shirt and had her long brunette hair up in a pony tail.  "Hi!" she said brightly.  "Are you one of the associates Jarod talked about?"

Parker narrowed her eyes at the girl and gave her an icy smile, "You must be Amanda Blake."

Amanda nodded, her smile fading.  The beautiful woman at the desk was intimidating and a bit frightening.  "Jarod called late last night and said something unexpected had come up and that he had to leave town, but that he'd ask some associates of his to continue the search for my mother," the young woman continued bravely.  "Did Jarod talk to you last night too?"

"Not exactly," Miss Parker lied not willing to admit she was the reason he had left town so suddenly.  "He left me this note describing your case," she gestured to the paper lying on the desk.

"I'd really appreciate your help," the college student said earnestly, "Jarod seemed really close to a break through and was excited about something he had found.  I was supposed to meet him at the college cafeteria last night but he didn't show up.  I'm worried.  When he called last night, it sounded like he was in pain."

Parker didn't know what to say so she changed the topic, "Tell me.  How did you meet Jarod?  Why is he helping you?"  She gestured to a chair in front of the desk.  "Have a seat.  I need to know everything before I can decide whether to help you."

"Well, I met Jarod three weeks ago at the beginning of the term.  He tried to talk to me that first day of chem. lab, but I was really rude to him.  I thought he was trying to pick me up," Amanda admitted embarrassed.  "Then the next week, he told me to stay after class and I had enjoyed how he ran the class so much that I did.  He showed me a print out of my web page and said he had come to Duke just to help me.  He said he was trying to find his family too, and that he had started this detective business to help other families find each other.  I told him I couldn't pay him any money, but he didn't care.  He acted like money wasn't even an issue.  He said that seeing the joy on people's faces when they were reunited was all the reward he needed.  Jarod's heart is so kind and he is so empathetic;  it's like he knows how you feel even before you do," Amanda finished with eyes shining with admiration.

"Ahem, Miss Parker?" Broots interrupted from the stairwell behind the desk.

"What?" snapped Parker irritably.  She hated being interrupted.  She looked over her shoulder at Broots to see him cringing at her and was suddenly jealous of Jarod.  How could he inspire this instant loyalty in someone he just met like Amanda?  Here she had worked with Broots for three years.  He was one of only two colleagues she trusted, and if she admitted it to herself, one of her only friends.  Yet he was still terrified of her.

"I heard voices and wanted to make sure everything was all right," Broots said.

Parker waved him into the room, "This is Amanda Blake," she introduced.

"Hi," he said walking over to shake her hand, "Everybody just calls me Broots."

"Um, Miss Parker?" Amanda hesitated until Parker turned and looked at her, "Are you going to help me?"

Parker stared back thoughtfully.  On one hand she was intrigued with this possible connection to her own mother's mysterious death, and the other hand she was tired of being the villain.  Jarod always got credit for helping people despite her pursuit of him, while all she ever got was frustration for not catching him.  And truth be told, she did feel like she owed it to him.  She was only just beginning to admit to herself that she was worried about how he was recovering from the gunshot she had inflicted on him.  Suddenly, she made up her mind.  Two could play this pretender game.

"Amanda, did you know your mother had changed her name before she married your father?" she responded, her actions answering the question.  "Look at this information Jarod uncovered," Parker held up the Centre application form.

Broots stepped over to the desk whistling softly and took the form.  "Does this look like your mother?" he asked holding it out towards Amanda.

She leaned forward to study the photograph and quickly nodded, "She looks so young!  But even with the glasses, I can tell it's her."

"What happened four years ago?" questioned Parker.

"She didn't come home from work one night.  My Dad called the police at midnight, but they wouldn't even investigate until she had been missing for 24 hours," Amanda replied bitterly.  "Eventually, they found where her car had gone off an embankment, and the car was found in the water.  Her body was never found, presumed washed away.  She was declared dead due to a car accident."

"Maybe she isn't dead," mused Parker.

"Why would she do that to me?" Amanda exclaimed.

"To protect you," Broots answered flatly.

"From what?" Amanda asked mystified, "She was just a mom.  She worked at my school on the PTA.  She baked cookies.  Who would want to hurt her?"

Broots and Parker looked knowingly at each other and answered at the same time, "The Centre."

"Broots, you go back to the Centre and search the archives for Eleanor Black and find out which project she had been assigned to.  There must be a connection there somewhere," Parker said.  "Amanda, do you have any old papers of your mother's?  You know, like a diary, or a scrapbook, or old files she might have kept?"

"I guess so, I don't know.  After she died, Dad and I didn't want to look through everything, but I wouldn't let him throw anything away either.  There's a bunch of boxes in the attic, but I don't really know what's in them," answered Amanda.

"Okay, your job is to go through those things.  Look for papers from 1970 or before, back when she worked at the Centre," delegated Miss Parker.  "I guess I'll meet you at the chem. lab tomorrow afternoon to see what ever you may find."

"Chem lab?" echoed Amanda.

"Well, someone has to be Jarod's substitute.  Besides, his note said to find your mother.  He clearly thinks she is still alive, but there is nothing here to suggest why.  Maybe he has some other evidence in his office at school.  No offense, but I don't think they'll let a student search a teacher's office.  I, on the other hand, can pretend to be looking for the lesson plans," concluded Parker.  "Where on campus is the chemistry lab?"

"Lab is on the second floor of Dalton Hall, room 207," Amanda instructed.

"What do lab teachers wear these days anyway?" Parker asked.

Broots laughed lightly, "I think you're going to enjoy this if it involves shopping."

Parker smiled back, "I'm taking you to the airport before I hit the mall.  Let's go.  We all have work to do."

Amanda stood up smiling gratefully at both of them.  "Thank you both so much.  I don't even want to believe my mother may still be alive, but it's great to have that hope."

Parker walked out of the door in a totally different mood than she had entered the small office.  Suddenly, she felt optimistic.


	4. Dreams of Reality

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Four

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Dawn Thursday

Jarod woke to the sound of birds twittering at the early light of dawn.  He opened his eyes to a large room barely lit by the grey light.  He was in a soft bed and as he tried to sit up pain like needles of fire pierce his shoulder front and back.  He panicked a moment, disoriented by the pain.  He struggled to sit up trying to remember how he got there and dizziness made him drop his head back into the pillow moaning.  A rustling sound caught his attention and he rolled his head to the side to see a woman roll over and push up on one arm to look at him.  She had been sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor next to the bed.  Her red hair was tousled with sleep, but her eyes were instantly awake and focused with concern on him.

Suddenly, it all came back to him and he blushed with the memory.  She had undressed him, bathed him, put him to bed like a baby and then had put stitches in his shoulder where he had been shot.  He had endured the few on his back, but had clearly passed out while she had finished operating on the front of his shoulder.

"Water," he croaked.  She nodded and gracefully rose reaching a glass on the bedside table that had a straw in it.  She had already anticipated his need.  Reaching under the pillow, she gently raised his head and held the glass so he could get a sip.  He nodded gratefully, but winced as she lowered him back down.

"I found some old Tylenol 3 with codeine from when I had my baby.  Let me give you some, you need more rest," she said.  She walked to a nearby door of a bathroom and returned with two pills in her hand.  Again she raised his head feeding him the medication and helping him drink water.  Laying him back down, she gently brushed his hair back off his forehead and ran her fingers slowly through his hair while she hummed softly.  Jarod relaxed in the bed a sense of absolute safety enveloping him as if he was back with his own mother as a young boy and he fell back asleep.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday Morning

The sound of a car horn roused Parker slightly as she lay curled up in the bed.  Her mind roamed somewhere in the half awake, half dream state.  It was the smell that brought back the memories.  Smells are often strong links to specific memories.  In this case it was his smell.  It was kind of musty, kind of sweet.  She hadn't really noticed last night as she had fallen asleep exhausted by the busy day.  But now the scent filled her mind of the first and last time she had slept in his bed….

The summer of 1975

It was the summer when she was fourteen.  She had never felt so lonely or betrayed.  The years since her beloved mother's death had only grown more desolate since her father spent night and day at work and the only time he saw her was to scold her.  She had tried being good and she had tried being bad to get his attention, but neither had worked.  All she had succeeded in was being removed from her school and away from her old friends and assigned to a tutor for continued studies.  It was the summer.  She was supposed to be going on vacations not taken to work every day.  Her only friend was a mysterious boy they kept locked up in the basement of the Centre.  They kept him so busy these days, constantly having him play acting like someone else and running these simulations.  She really didn't see the point of it all.

She had ditched her tutor that afternoon out of sheer boredom and was determined to see Jarod.  She hadn't been able to talk to him for over a week.  She hid in some duct work.  She and Jarod had met another mysterious little boy named Angelo who had guided them around all the secret tunnels of the Centre that only small people like themselves could comfortably fit through.  She knew many of the passages by heart, especially those to her only friend.

She worked her way down several levels to where she knew they usually made Jarod perform in front of all the cameras.  But the large room was strangely quiet.  She took a chance to dash across the room to another set of vents.  Going around would have taken twice as long.  Quickly worming through the new set of ducts, she came to a set of three rooms that were Jarod's quarters.  The big front room was set up like a class room, his bedroom and bathroom were the doors behind.  There were bookshelves all around the walls lined with books and models that he had made.  One wall was dominated by a huge projector screen and surround sound speakers.  It would have been a teenager's entertainment center dream if she hadn't known what kinds of videos they subjected him with in the interest of the simulations they had him live through.  "Psst, Jarod," she called out softly.

A dark haired boy looked up from a stack of papers on the desk in front of him and grinned at her.  "Sydney's at a meeting today.  Come in.  I need a break from this stuff."

She hesitated a moment searching the room a moment with her eyes to confirm he was alone.  She knew her Dad disapproved of her talking with Jarod, although she really didn't see why.  But she didn't want to get caught and endure his scolding her again.  "You want to play chess?" she asked hopefully.  She had almost beaten him last time and had a new gambit up her sleeve to try out on him.

Jarod shook his head sadly.  "I really have to have all this finished tonight.  Just come talk to me a bit."

Parker walked up to the desk and picked up the top piece of paper.  It was a series of chemical equations in Jarod's square, precise handwriting that looked almost like typesetting.  "Oh, Chemistry," she said bored.  "I did that last school year."

"Well, actually, it's more like a mystery," Jarod said defensively.  "They want me to figure out the chain reaction that caused this chemical manufacturing plant to explode.  It killed over 20 workers and they don't want it to happen again."

"Let me help," she offered.

"Okay, maybe I'll think of something when I explain it to you," Jarod said smugly.  Without knowing it, he challenged her to a battle of wits and she was determined to wipe that smug smile off his face.

"Maybe I'll explain it to you," she snapped back.

Jarod grinned and began explaining the diagram of the chemical plant and the processes that it was designed to do.  Parker really did know her chemistry and followed along asking clarifying questions.  First, he would have an idea to follow and then she would suggest a variation that led another direction.  They quickly lost track of time and were enjoying the chemical puzzle as much as a chess game.

Suddenly, Parker shouted, "Ah-ha!" triumphantly pointing to a blow up diagram of a distillation apparatus.  "It couldn't have been accidental.  Someone had to disconnect the flow to here in order for the products of that third reaction to back flow into the first!"

Jarod nodded slowly in agreement.  He had kept looking for the way an accident could occur.  He never liked to imagine someone deliberately sabotaging the plant and causing so much death and destruction.

"Very nice, Miss Parker," said a soft, accented voice.

Startled, they looked up guiltily to see Sydney, Jarod's mentor, standing in the doorway.

"Oh, Sydney, you're back early," Jarod said awkwardly.

"You two work very well together," Sydney observed studying Parker carefully.

She suddenly felt like he was about to lock her up in a room like this and turn her into one of the Centre's projects.  "I better go," she said quickly, "I'll be late for dinner."

"Come see me again, soon," Jarod said quietly, his eyes begging her.

"I promise," she whispered back.

She nodded and walked to the front door.  No point using the ducts if Sydney already knew she was here.  She paused and looked back, "Please don't tell my father, Sydney," she implored.  Sydney inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

Parker walked quickly down the hall and caught an elevator to the library level.  Maybe she could make a big show about being there all afternoon.  She snuck in when the librarian's back was turned and made her way to a study carol in the back.  Pausing at a nearby shelf, she filled her arms with a stack of art history books and quickly opened a number of them to random pages and lay them carefully out like she had been studying them.  Then she made a big show of coming out from the back, asking the librarian for some more paper since she had used up all of hers.  She retreated back to the corner and permitted herself a sigh of relief.  Maybe she would get away with it.

A short time later, she heard the steps of someone coming through the stacks and she looked up in surprise at her father.  He surveyed the books and the stack of paper that had clearly not been written on.  "Come to my office, Angel," he commanded, "We have to talk."

She followed him quietly wondering if he knew or whether this was just a scolding for having ditched the tutor.  He held the door to his office open as she walked in and then shut and locked it firmly.  She turned hesitantly at the sound of the click, and saw his face clouded with anger.  "I will not be disrespected nor disobeyed," he said sternly.  "You went and saw him again.  When I told you not to.  Didn't you?" he demanded.

She looked back at him trying to decide if he really knew or was just baiting her.  "Who?  I've been studying," she half lied.  She had helped Jarod on his chemistry project.

"I will not tolerate lies!" her father roared and slapped her across the face.  "You were seen on the lower levels which I have forbidden you to visit anymore."

"Sydney told you," she cried out in pain and disbelief.

"No," her father replied his eyes narrowing.  "You were seen on the monitors of the simulation room.  But I clearly need to question other people."

"I'm sorry.  It's all my fault," she rushed to take blame and spare her friends.  "It's just so boring with that tutor."

"Exactly," responded her father the heat of his anger quickly fading to cold calculation.  "And that is why I am sending you off to boarding school tomorrow.  I was planning to send you in the fall, but given the circumstances, sooner will be better.  Pack a bag with a few things and I will send all the rest of your things along after you," he commanded with finality.

She stared in disbelief.  Sent away just like that?  But her father was all she had.  The Centre was all she had ever known.  And without saying goodbye to Jarod?  She'd promised to see him again.  She set her jaw determined to keep that promise.

She sat sullenly through dinner and picked at her food, while her father talked at her about the all girl's boarding school in Vermont and how wonderful it was supposed to be, but she only half listened.  She remained quiet on the short ride to their house near the Centre as a plan formed in her mind.  As they neared the house, she turned to her father with a smile, "I'm sorry, Daddy.  I know you want what's best for me and it will be good to try this new school."

"That's my Angel," he praised feeling he had won.

She kissed her father goodnight and skipped up the stairs to pack her bag.  She made lots of noise in the bathroom and called goodnight again as she heard him settle into his room.  Then carrying the light bag she had packed, she snuck out of the house and clambered on her bike.  She hadn't ridden it in ages and the tires were rather flat, but it went faster than she could walk and time was of the essence.

Arriving at the Centre, she hid the bike in some bushes and then walked quickly through the front doors barely acknowledging the guard who was used to seeing her go by.  She took an elevator upstairs in case they were monitoring her, but quickly entered the ventilation ducts and worked her way back down to the lower levels.

She came into the large classroom that was all dark and stumbled against a chair as she made her way to his room.  She never been in there before, only seen through the door.  She turned the handle slowly, her heart beating like a drum.  Would Jarod go along with her plan?

"Who's there?" he called out quietly.  "Angelo?"

"It's me," she answered.

"Miss Parker?" he asked in amazement.

She could just make him out sitting in bed by the glow of a digital clock on a bookshelf on the wall beside the bed.  He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and it reflected the faint light guiding her way.  She reached the bed and reached out her hands.  He took them into his own and pulled her on the edge of the bed.

"What are you doing here?" he wondered.

"Jarod, my father is sending me to boarding school, tomorrow.  I didn't want to go without saying goodbye.  I promised I would come see you."

"Nooo," he breathed sadly, "What will I do without you?  You're my only friend," Jarod clutched her hands tightly.

"Let's run away," she proposed quickly, throwing her plan out without all the build up and reasoning she had practiced on the way there.  "Let's get away from this place.  You deserve a better life than this, Jarod."

He reached up to touch her face, and she flinched as his gentle fingers touched her cheek.  "What's wrong?" he asked.

"He was furious with me for disobeying.  He slapped me," she started crying softly.  "It was my fault.  He doesn't mean to hurt me.  My father loves me," she asserted more to herself than to Jarod.

Jarod pulled her in a hug and let her cry on his shoulder.  He buried his face in her hair and smelled the summery, violet smell she always had.  His mind was racing with scenarios, but every one ended with disaster, and always with her father getting mad at her again.

To escape from this place.  To feel the sun and the wind.  The longing filled his soul and he was ready to risk everything, but he wouldn't risk her too.  He knew they were too young.  They might escape for a while, but they would eventually get caught.  If they were older, and could get jobs to support themselves, maybe, but somehow, he knew even then that the Centre would never give up their hold on him.

"We can't.  They'll catch us.  You know it," he finally said sadly.

Parker lifted her head and looked at his sad eyes.  She knew he was right.  He was always right.  "Will you always be my friend?" she asked feeling a pang of intense loneliness.

"I promise.  I know they'll always have a hold on me.  They treat me like a possession.  But you are Mr. Parker's daughter.  Everyone respects and fears him.  You can get away.  Oh, do, get away.  Go to the boarding school.  I can endure not seeing you if I know you are free of this place.  I will always be here for you," Jarod promised.

"I'll always be your friend," she promised back looking up into his intense dark eyes.

Jarod brushed a lock of hair up off her face staring back at her, then ever so slowly he leaned over and kissed her lips gently.  Ever since she had surprised him with his first kiss, he had wanted to try it again.

Leaning back, she placed a hand on his chest, "Please, just hold me a bit," she asked.

Not trusting himself to say anything, Jarod nodded.  His emotions all in confusion.  He knew he loved her and thought maybe she loved him back which made his heart soar.  But at the same time he knew she had to leave and there was a good chance he would never see her again, and so he felt utter despair at the same time.  Only the thought of her being free to live a real life gave him hope.  That and the thought that someday he might see her again.

Jarod scooted over in his twin bed making room for her and pulled her down to share the pillow.  He folded one arm up against her spine and threw the other protectively over her side as they snuggled like spoons.  She began to cry again.  He moved his hand to brush her hair slowly pulling his fingers through her soft hair and crooning softly having a rare flashback to something his mother had done when he was a child.

Parker felt his warmth on her back and the gentle stroking of her hair.  She heard the soft humming and could smell his light musky scent on the pillow.  She hadn't felt so safe in months and found herself drifting off to sleep.

Raleigh, North Carolina,

Miss Parker sat straight up in bed in disbelief.  That's not how it went, she thought to herself.  That's not a memory.  It's a dream.  It has to be a dream.

"I woke up in the infirmary the next morning," she said to herself out loud.

She closed her eyes tightly desperately trying to sort out conflicting memories.  She had gone to see him and he rebuffed her.  He had yelled mean things and then had attacked her.  He had slapped her and she had only just been rescued by a sweeper before he could do anything worse.  Right?

She had lived her life with that thought of Jarod.  All through high school and all through college.  Her father always telling her that Jarod was dangerous.  That he needed to be confined to the Centre for his own and other's safety.

But suddenly that memory seemed a terrible lie and she was ashamed she had believed it so long.  She lay back down and buried her head in his pillow, breathing in deeply the scent she found there.  It brought only a sense of peace and comfort.  She rolled over and touched her cheek in memory.  Jarod hadn't slapped her.  Her father had.  He had reprogrammed her memories!

Parker sat back up again as a cold fury filled her veins.  Her own father had manipulated her all those many years ago.  Even now, he had her on his leash.  Well, her eyes were beginning to open now.  And she was going to help Jarod this time.  She did owe it to him.  Not because of some sense of guilt from having shot Jarod, but because he would always be her friend.  She had promised.


	5. Substitute Pretender

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Five

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday 9:30 AM

Parker slid her long legs out of bed and surveyed the small apartment in the morning light.  She hadn't troubled herself to search it last night when she had arrived back late from her shopping expedition.  As usual, Jarod left a mess of newspapers, books, toys, and pez dispensers strewn around the room.  She shook her head.  How could someone with such a brilliant mind live in such a pigsty?

She picked up the three shopping bags she had purchased the night before and unceremoniously dumped them out on top of the bed.  She shook out a pair of navy slacks and a white cotton blouse from one, and a pair of "sensible" shoes from the other.  They were also navy, closed-toe and with the new style of block heel, somewhat lower than her favorite three inch stiletto heels.  And a collection of toiletries and makeup from the third.  Walking over to the table strew with papers, she hoped to find some scissors to cut off the tags.  Instead she was distracted by a file folder half hidden by a partially unfolded map.  Inside was a syllabus with titles of chemistry labs outlined by date and then a stack of handouts.  One set was turned sideways and flipping to the front, she realized it was for today's lab.  Then suddenly she realized the map she had pushed aside had a red line tracing the route from this street in Raleigh, out of town on Highway 70 to Durham and then to Duke University.  Was it something he had prepared for himself?  Or had he left this for her?

Since she didn't find any scissors, she returned to the clothes and pulled the tags until they snapped off.  There was a small tear in the blouse but hopefully she would only be wearing it once this afternoon to look the part of a student teacher.  Shrugging she put on the clothes that fit well, but more loosely than she usually wore her clothes.  She liked to were tight clothes that accentuated the curves of her body.  She knew she looked good and she liked the feeling of power it gave her over many men.

Walking into the small bathroom she washed her face and started applying mascara.  The cap rolled off the counter and she leaned over to pick it up and froze.  There in the trash was a blood soaked t-shirt and numerous wrappers from sterile gauze pads.  She swallowed hard realizing the pain Jarod must be going through.  How was it possible that she had shot him?  It had been totally accidental that the gun had gone off when Willie the sweeper had bumped her in his haste to catch Jarod.  Suddenly, she felt the need to check in with Sydney.  Jarod would call him and tell him if he was all right.

The Centre, Delaware, 9:15 AM

Sydney sat wearily in his desk chair, keeping a vigil on his office phone.  He had his mobile phone laid out on the desk as well.  He had only dozed all night long, constantly hoping that Jarod would check in soon.  His relationship was like a teacher and like a father.  In his old age, with even his twin brother, Jacob, gone, Sydney felt like Jarod was his only family.  It was a source of constant regret that he had played such an instrumental part in keeping the boy at the Centre and in training him to do all the things that he could do.  Now that Jarod had run away, there was really no point of his remaining at the Centre.  He knew Jarod was too smart ever to get caught and the only reason they had ever gotten close was because Jarod had left them clues.  But he couldn't retire and just walk away.  He was afraid he would never see Jarod again.  Sydney hoped that by staying he could help protect Jarod from the powers of the Centre and perhaps even help Jarod find out information about his real family.  Sydney felt he owed it to his surrogate son.

The door opened and the last person Sydney felt like seeing breezed into his office.  "Good morning, Sydney," Lyle said in a chipper voice.  He was dressed in a freshly pressed suit, looking well refreshed.  "Did you sleep well?"

Sydney narrowed his eyes a bit.  Lyle obviously knew he had not left the Centre.  He briefly wondered how a man like Mr. Lyle could ever sleep at all after all the terrible things he had done over the years.  "Can I help you?" Sydney replied diplomatically changing the topic.

"Actually, I'm looking for my dear sister.  Have you seen her?" asked Lyle sarcastically.

"She and Broots went back to North Carolina to follow up on some other leads," replied Sydney.

"I thought my father ordered you to stay together."

"No, he told Miss Parker not to go after Jarod alone.  She is not alone," corrected Sydney.

Then with his perfect bad timing, Broots walked in the door.  "Oh, excuse me.  I'll come back later," he mumbled trying to beat a hasty retreat.

Mr. Lyle spun on his heel quickly and held a hand on the door preventing Broots from leaving.  "Back from your trip so soon?  Where's Miss Parker?"

"Um, I left her…" Broots started and then noticed the strangled look Sydney was giving him over Lyle's shoulder, "at her house.  She isn't feeling well today and is taking some time off," he finished.  Ordinarily, Broots preferred omission to outright lying, but he knew the evil Lyle was capable of and he wasn't about to let Lyle get anything over Miss Parker.

Lyle detected the lie but erroneously attributed it to other reasons.  He smiled wolfishly and turned back to look at Sydney who was slumping back after having sat straight up in his silent communication with Broots.  "She's as soft on that lab rat as you are, Sydney, isn't she?  I saw the look on her face on that street.  She's probably brooding guiltily at home.  I guess I inherited all the fortitude and determination to do whatever it takes to get the job done."  He smiled smugly at them, "You'll let me know if either of them contact you, won't you?"

Sydney merely nodded yes, and Lyle swept out of the office letting the door close loudly behind him.

Broots rushed up to Sydney's side at the desk and spoke in a low voice so anyone trying to listen would not be able to hear.  "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Sydney.  I left Miss Parker back in North Carolina.  She's going to finish Jarod's pretend there and help a college student find her mother."

"What?" asked Sydney incredulous that Miss Parker would help Jarod.

"The mother we're looking for, this woman, may have worked here at the Centre twenty years ago.  Sydney, do you remember anyone named Eleanor Black?"

Sydney frowned and closed his eyes briefly.  "Hmm," he mused,  "The name sounds familiar, maybe a nurse I once worked with.  I'm not sure."

"Why all the secrecy about Miss Parker?" Broots continued.

"Mr. Parker ordered her not to go after Jarod by herself yesterday," answered Sydney.

"I don't think she's after Jarod on this one.  This has to do with her mother," replied Broots.

Sydney nodded with understanding.  Miss Parker had only been a girl when her mother had died.  At first it had been called a suicide, and now it looked more like a murder.  She had taken the loss hard then, and it haunted her even now.

The ringing of the phone startled Sydney.  He had waited so long for it to ring and now found himself completely distracted when it did.  He snatched up the desk phone, answering with his usual, "Sydney."  Hoping as he did that it was Jarod.

"Any word yet, Sydney" asked Miss Parker from the other end of the line.

"Oh, it's you," replied Sydney.

"Thanks," she said sarcastically.  "Have you heard from Jarod yet?" she asked directly.

Sydney was struck by the tone in her voice.  She really wanted to know.  "No, he hasn't called me yet," he answered sadly.

"I'm working some leads here from Jarod's last pretend that I think may lead to some information about my mother.  Cover for me there and help Broots if you can.  I'll call back later this afternoon and check in with you on any developments," instructed Miss Parker.

"All right," he replied wearily.

"And Syd," she paused, "I'm sorry about what I said yesterday.  I really appreciate your help."

"Miss Parker," he replied in surprise, "It's okay.  We've got the bases covered here already.  Hope you have a good rest at home and get over that illness Lyle thinks you have," he clued her in.

"Thanks, Sydney, I'll talk to you later," and she hung up.

Sydney looked up at Broots.  "Well, lets get started searching the Centre's records about the mysterious Eleanor Black.  Use my computer.  I can stand to have some distraction from waiting for the phone to ring."

Broots nodded and brought another chair around the desk to the computer and cracked his knuckles with a grin.  "That's what I'm good at."

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 11 AM

Miss Parker stood at the base of the steps leading up into Dalton Hall.  She had made the twenty mile drive between towns easily in the late morning traffic and had quickly found a visitor parking place.  From her own days at college she knew the person to see was the departmental secretary.  The department chair was far too busy to worry about teacher's schedules.  She needed to talk to the person with the real power.

"Excuse me," she called to a couple of students walking down the stairs.  "Where's the departmental office?"

"It's on the second floor, right across from the elevator," answered one student.

"Is Babs still the secretary," Parker fished.

"Who?  The secretary is Anna Potosky," answered the other.

"Thanks," Parker smiled brilliantly at them, nodded and stepped quickly up the stairs before they could ask her any questions.

She strode confidently to the elevators set in the middle of the building and pushed the up button.  But as the elevator doors opened, she found herself with butterflies in her stomach and it wasn't a feeling she was accustomed to.  Ordinarily she would enter a site where Jarod had been with a team of sweepers.  The intimidating power she could project with a squad of obviously powerful men in dark suits behind her was one of her favorite parts of her job.  She ordered complete strangers around and 99% of the time they did what ever she told them to do.  But now she needed a different strategy.  In fact, she needed to use the one Jarod was so very good at, impersonating a role so well that other people didn't even suspect you weren't who you pretended to be.  She stepped in the elevator and pushed two to go up.  As the doors closed, she closed her eyes and tried to settle her nerves.

She had been identified as a potential pretender as a child, hadn't she, Parker argued with herself.  Jarod had found eight red files, not just seven as they had originally thought.  Her name had been on that eighth file.  It was clear that her mother had hidden the file to protect her when she had been a toddler.  What would her mother advise her to do now?

The thought of her mother filled her with calm and she could almost hear her voice saying, "Trust your instincts.  Feel what they feel."

Parker opened her eyes startled.  She could almost swear she had heard her mother's voice.  She suddenly recalled her conversation with Amanda Blake from the night before.  "Jarod's heart is so kind and he is so empathetic;  it's like he knows how you feel even before you do," Amanda had said.  Empathy was the key to pretending.  Parker shook her head.  She had spent most of her life closing off her feelings.  How did she open up to the feelings of total strangers?  Well, she'd trust her feelings she decided and as the doors opened, she stepped out filled with confidence again.

Across the hall was a set of glass doors with Chemistry Department stenciled plainly on them.  Through the doors she could see an older woman sitting at a large desk with a credenza to one side the filing cabinets stacked behind against the wall.  The woman had hair dyed just a tad too black, and her age lines skillfully camouflaged under makeup.  As Parker pushed open the doors, she marveled that the woman's long, red painted fingernails didn't slow her typing.  "How may I help you?" the woman asked with a slight New Jersey accent.

"Are you Ms. Potosky?  Anna Potosky?" Parker asked.  

"Yes," the woman answered slowly.

Parker could feel the woman's uncertainty.  She was clearly used to being in charge, but not accustomed to having strangers looking for her and not one of the chemistry professors.

"Jarod sent me," Parker began.

"Dr. Boyle isn't here yet.  He has a lab in about two hours," Anna Potosky interrupted.

"No, you don't understand.  He didn't send for me.  He sent me to cover the class."

Anna turned her full attention to study Parker suspiciously.  "You aren't a university associate.  I can't fill out any paperwork for you in two hours, let alone get it approved."

Parker began to worry.  She really wanted to get past this woman and into Jarod's office to search for any clues to Amanda's mother's disappearance, her own mother's death and possibly even where he might have run away to this time.  How could she get this woman on her side?  Then it occurred to her that she had to take this woman into her confidence or at least one version of the truth to succeed.  Parker glanced over her shoulder and leaned over the desk to give an air of secrecy.  "Is there somewhere we can talk more privately?"

Anna was clearly intrigued.  Part of her sense of power was knowing things that ordinary people didn't and this conversation seemed to be leading to some interesting things.  "Dr. Lennarz is out of his office for a lunch seminar.  We can go in there," she offered standing up and leading the way to a door on the left.  She opened the door to a large office with two windows overlooking the campus.  Set under the windows were two comfortable reading chairs and a small coffee table scattered with science journals.

"My name is Miss Parker," Parker introduced herself holding her hand out to shake hands.  "I'm an old friend of Dr. Boyle's."  She quickly recalled the name the secretary had given.  "You know how Jarod is—never wants to let anyone down."

Anna gestured to the chairs, sitting in one herself without saying anything, waiting for Parker to continue.  So Parker settled herself in the chair carefully folding her long legs to the side and not in a dominant crossed position with her foot swinging out.  "He asked me to come pick up a few things for him and to make sure this file of lesson plans was passed on to the right person."

"Are you implying that this is not a temporary absence? queried Anna.

"Yes, I'm afraid you are going to have to find a new chemistry lab instructor," replied Parker, offering the file of lab handouts.

"Why didn't he bring this himself?"

Parker could sense the woman's impatience growing and knew she had to draw her in with a story of some kind.  Again she made a show of looking out the door and dropping her voice to a whisper said, "When 'They' call him back to work for them, he has to go right away," and gave the secretary a knowing look.

"Military research?" Anna breathed.

Parker shrugged, "It's very secret.  He has a very special way of thinking."

Anna nodded wisely.  "I could tell right away he was special.  I've seen lots of them come and go, and have met my share of Nobel laureates.  He was pretending to be dumber than he was."  Parker started a little at the word "pretending" and tried to hide it by shifting her position in the chair.  A fact that did not escape Anna's notice.  "So he called you to come take over teaching?"

"Well, really to clean out his office," Parker said hoping to get out of the interview soon, "but if you're unable to find someone today, I am willing to help you out," she added seeing the doubt growing in the older woman's face.  "I've cleaned up behind Jarod so many times the last few years I've lost count."

Anna could sense the real truth behind this statement and looked shrewdly at Parker, "You've been chasing after him, haven't you?"  And Parker startled again.  "You know you never catch a man by chasing him, you have to let him chase you," Anna advised.

"You misunderstand," Parker rushed to say, "We're not romantically involved…"

"…Anymore," finished Anna.  "When did he leave you?"

"I left him first!" blurted Parker and then blushed.  She was losing it in front of this woman, and needed to put a clamp down on her feelings that she had just started to access during this pretend.  She was beginning to feel uncomfortable and irrationally angry at Jarod for his success at pretending.

Parker stood and straightened her blouse where it tucked into the slacks, assuming her more normal command pose, "Would you please show me to his office so I can retrieve his things," she asked politely but icily.

Anna nodded her head slowly.  She could sense there was more to this story than the young woman was telling her, but what she had heard made sense given what she had observed in the last few weeks in Jarod Boyle's behavior.  She had seen him casually correct a set of chemistry equations that had been left in the coffee room that she knew others in the department had been stumped over for weeks.  He had only Xeroxed handouts for the first month of school, like he knew he wouldn't finish the term.  "Well, if he's leaving me scrambling for a last minute substitute, then it's only fair I let you take care of sending his things on to him," Anna shrugged and stood up also, "Come on, I'll show you his cubicle and then I need to find a graduate student to cover that class."

After a short walk down the hall, Anna led Parker to a small office filled with four desks and gestured to the least cluttered one in the corner.  "There you are.  He travels pretty light doesn't he?" she observed.

Parker stared in amazement at the desk.  There were two chemistry texts leaned up against the wall, a neat stack of graded papers with a calculator sitting on top of them on one side of the desk and Jarod's laptop computer right in the middle.  "Thank you," she said turning to the woman and giving her a genuine, delighted smile.  "That computer is just what I was looking for.  Do you mind if I sit here awhile and check if he left me any further instructions," she added to allay any suspicions.

Anna regarded her briefly and gestured to the chair.  "It will be quiet in here until after lunch.  I need to go find a substitute now.  It would be nice if you were available this afternoon, in case I'm not able to find someone."

Parker was suddenly anxious to stay on this woman's good side and nodded agreeably falling back to her original line, "Of course, that's what he asked me to do right?"

"I'll check back with you later then," said the secretary as she left.

Parker stepped over to the desk and cautiously raised the lid on the laptop almost afraid it would explode or something.  She turned it on and found herself holding her breath as it booted up.  This was a great find!  Who knows what information Jarod had stored in this computer about the Centre, about her family, and even about himself.  She found herself day dreaming about the praise her father would give her for having retrieved the computer.  After he scolded her for having missed catching Jarod again she admitted.

The screen in front of her settled down with a data box and a cursor blinking in the center of it.  'Enter Password' it blinked continuously at her.  Oh, bother, she thought, this isn't going to be easy.  Where's Broots when you need him?


	6. Shadow of Evil

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Six

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Thursday, Noon

Jarod awoke hot and miserable.  His whole body ached, but especially his right shoulder.  His brow was sweaty with a fever and when he opened his eyes everything seemed to be composed of small spots like some sort of pointillist painting.  Just turning his head on the pillow made him feel dizzy.  But despite how badly he felt, he had an even greater need to urinate.  He struggled to push himself to a sitting position, his legs swung out over the edge of the bed.  He drew several ragged breaths and then by sheer force of will made himself stand and begin walking to the open doorway of the bathroom.  Staggering, he caught himself on the doorframe and slowly the gray spots before his eyes cleared.  He could see himself in the large mirror over the sink.  He was wearing gray cotton sweatpants and had no shirt, just gauze bandages carefully taped on the front and back of his shoulder.  His dark hair was sticking up wildly from having slept on it while it had dried.  He had several days of scraggly black beard and his eyes were yellowed and bloodshot.  He not only felt like hell, he looked like it too.  His need drove him forward and he managed to relieve himself by leaning over the toilet with his good arm bracing him against the back wall.  Hitching his sweatpants back up, he turned and started to walk back to the doorway.  But after two swaying steps he found it difficult to maintain his balance.  As dizzying gray spots clouded his sight, he reached out his left hand for the counter, swept a cup into the sink with a clatter, and fell with a loud thud to the linoleum.

In the kitchen preparing lunch, Emily heard the clatter and rushed to the back bedroom.  She saw him collapsed on the bathroom floor and knelt by his side turning him gently.  She felt his pulse and pulled back an eyelid, noting the warmth of his forehead as she did.  He wasn't a large man, but he was tall and she knew she couldn't carry him back to the bed.  If she could bring him back to at least semi-consciousness, she could help him.  So she pulled a washcloth from a drawer and wetted it with cold water.  Then lifting his head into her lap, she squeezed some water on his cracked lips and onto his hair.  She pressed the cloth to his forehead and slapped his cheek lightly, "Jarod, wake up.  Don't pass out on me down here.  Jarod, Jarod," she called his name.

His eyes fluttered open and his fevered brain struggled to make connections.  Her red hair sent him back in time to when he was a little boy, "Mom?" he asked.  "Don't let them take me this time, Mom, please."  He clutched at her arm pleading, "Please."

"Shhh, it's alright.  Let me help you up.  You need to get back to bed now," Emily said as she struggled to stand and pull him up at the same time.

Being 6'3" he was considerably taller than her 5 ½ feet so it was easy to wedge her shoulder under his good arm and take most of his weight as he shuffled the few steps back to the bed where he slid slowly down to sit on the edge.  Emily grabbed a prescription bottle by the side of the bed and quickly pulled two large caplets out and pressed one of them to his lips.  "Take these.  They're antibiotics.  You've gotten an infection and need to fight it off.  Don't pass out yet," she told him slapping his cheek again.  "Stay with me now.  Drink this…good…now take another…that's right," she murmured as she fed him the medications.

Laying him on his side, she gently pulled off the small back bandage and replaced it with a fresh one using supplies all ready on the nightstand.  She left the front bandage alone for now and rolled him on his back pulling the sheets up over him as he seemed to be falling asleep again.  "Get some more rest now.  It's perfect napping weather.  It looks like it will be a gray afternoon with mist and rain."

Suddenly his eyes flew open in panic, "Mister Raines!" he shouted.  Adrenaline shot through his fevered body and he thrust the sheets off, pushing her away with surprising strength as he stood again and looked wildly around the room with fever crazed eyes.

Emily was unprepared for his wild actions and fell backwards on the rug.  Her training in the hospital helped her and she knew better than to touch him in his delusional state.  "Jarod," she called, "it's just me.  I'm your friend."  She moved slowly to her knees and then to standing as he turned and his eyes slowly focused on her.  "It's only me and you.  There's no one else here.  You're safe.  I promise you."

His head shook in a little shiver.  Then his brown eyes cleared temporarily looking sadly into her blue ones and he echoed the words, "I promise you."

She held out her hand and he reached out slowly.  Then slowly his knees began to crumple and she barely managed to catch him and pivot so that he fell once again on the bed.  This time she covered him soundlessly and left the room with more questions than ever in her head.  Who was this man?  What job had he had before?  What had he done to be shot?  Who was this Mr. Raines that could terrify a grown man?

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware

Sydney led Broots down one of the long corridors of the hospital wing.  He hadn't been there for at least ten years, not since the days of training Jarod to be a doctor had required them to spend months seeing select patients and getting practice in actual surgery.  But Broots had never been in this part of the Centre and he found the sharp, antiseptic smell even more disquieting than the sterile white walls and tomblike silence.

"This seems really empty for a medical unit," observed Broots quietly.  "It was positively bustling on those first two floors we walked down."

"It's supposed to be this way," Sydney reassured him.  "This level has extra insulation and air filters to prevent spread of contagion.  It's reserved for patients with highly contagious diseases.  There is probably no one admitted here right now."

"It feels creepy," complained Broots.

"You're the one who said we had to come here to access the old main frame computer that stored the old hospital wing records."

"I know.  They didn't bother transferring many of the old records to the new system when they updated five years ago.  In order to search the data base to see which patients Eleanor Black had nursed, we have to go directly to the hard drives.  I just hope they had installed some kind of standard query language, my Fortran is getting pretty rusty," replied Broots.

As they neared the end of the quiet corridor, there were three doors to choose from.  Broots opened the middle one that lined up with the hall but it was a small storage closet with cleaning supplies inside.  Sydney turned to the right and easily opened the door that led to a large room with computer towers and reels of magnetic tape stacked all around the edges.  He turned back to Broots smiling, but saw him frozen at the door across the hall, "What is it?" Sydney asked.

"There's someone moaning in here," Broots replied in a frightened whisper.

Sydney stepped across the corridor and leaned his head against the door to listen.  A dull monotonous sound could be faintly heard.  He tested the door but it was securely locked.  "Do you have any tools to open the lock?" he asked.

Broots nodded nervously and removed a folded leather pouch from his shirt pocket.  Unfolding it, he revealed a set of slim metal picks with a variety of hooks on the ends.  He selected three and crouched down to the lock, inserting two of them and twisting them around.  He shook his head and traded one hook for the other in his hands and tried again.  His tongue stuck out slightly as he concentrated on maneuvering the picks.  Suddenly, Sydney clapped a hand on his shoulder pushing him off balance and making him bite his tongue.  "Ow," he exclaimed.

"Shh, someone's coming!" Sydney whispered urgently.

They darted back across the corridor and into the computer room.  Sydney turned the lock quietly and leaned his head against the door hinge to listen.  Broots cowered next to a rack of computer equipment.

"I hear footsteps and squeaking wheels," whispered Sydney.

In terror, Broots mouthed the words, "Mis-ter Raines."

Sydney nodded in agreement and leaned his ear back on the door.  Voices carried faintly but clearly through the door.

"Open it up, Willie," the raspy voice of the Raines ordered.  His heavy breathing and the squeak of the oxygen tank he dragged behind him everywhere for his emphysema where right outside their door.  "Ah, George, so have we learned our lesson for not following orders, hmm?"  The voice paused but any reply was too faint to be heard.  The fading squeak of the tank implied that he had walked into the other room.

"Is George the sweeper who quit two weeks ago?" Sydney whispered to Broots.

"I heard he disagreed with Raines about using force with some of the children in the research wing," Broots whispered back.

A loud voice drew Sydney's attention back to his listening post.  "No one can leave the Centre," the voice paused, "not even him!  He's been shot and is being tracked and will be returned to the Centre before long.  Are you ready to resume your duties now?"

Another voice could faintly be heard, "I'll never be the instrument of your cruelty again!"

"Very well, that can be arranged.  Willie…" Raines replied.  A sudden whistle of a muffled gunshot ended the conversation.  "Bring a cleanup crew back to decontaminate the room," he ordered as their footsteps and the squeak of the tank receded down the hallway.

Sydney looked over at Broots, "We have to get out of here before Raines' men come back."

"What about the computer data base?" gestured Broots.

"We'll have to come back later tonight when they're all through cleaning up.  We don't want to be found here," replied Sydney grimly.  He opened the door cautiously and looked down the hall to be sure there were no signs of Raines or his men returning.  Beckoning to Broots, Sydney led the way out with only a quick glance at the crumpled figure across the hall of the poor lost soul that had been George.

Duke University, Raleigh, North Carolina

Parker sighed in frustration and slapped the top of the computer screen, "Blasted thing!  Let me in!" she yelled at it.  She had been trying passwords for over half an hour and hadn't been able to access the computer's operating system.  She had tried all sorts of words that held meaning for Jarod.  His parents' names Margaret and Charles.  His brother Kyle, who had been shot by her twin brother, Lyle.  His younger sister Emily whom he had never even met.  She tried code words such as used at the Centre like prodigy, genius, pretender, red files.  She tried words from Greek and Roman myths.  She tried words from foreign languages.  How many languages could he speak now?  Forty or something?  She shook her head.  This is no good, she admitted, I'm up against the genius of Jarod.

"Ah-ha!" she exclaimed out loud, quickly typing the name 'Sydney'.  Why hadn't she tried that sooner.  But was rewarded with the now familiar flash of "Access Denied" and the cursor screen reappearing to blink "Enter Password" infuriatingly at her.  Just to say she had, she quickly ran through the list of all the Centre employees she knew that Jarod knew including herself, where she typed 'Miss Parker' and then simply 'Parker'.

She stared thoughtfully at the screen a moment remembering her dream of the morning, or maybe she should say reawakening.  When they were kids, she had whispered her name to him once.  Almost no one knew her given name.  Everyone called her Miss Parker, and even her father called her by his nickname for her, Angel.  Slowly she typed in 'Andrea' and hit enter.

Unbelievably, the computer drives began clicking and churning as the password screen blinked away to be replaced with a video image of Jarod.  "Congratulations.  You've obviously surprised me and have either killed me or captured me, or you wouldn't be seeing this message."  His eyes stared sorrowfully out at her from the computer screen.  "The last couple of years I have teased you and thwarted you, but it's really been in your best interest.  You would have never accepted the truths I know about the Centre if I had just told them to you.  I have been trying to guide you and help you discover them for yourself.  I hoped you had escaped from the Centre when you went away to school, but in many ways you are more your father's prisoner than I ever was.  Why did you agree to chase me?  Why didn't you trust me to find you?  You've forced us both to be alone for so long, but I was and ever shall be your friend."  Jarod smiled sadly as the recording finished and then it blinked away to be replaced with the standard program icons.

Parker blinked a few times in shock.  How did he do that?  She had only just remembered clearly the day her father sent her off to boarding school and he reminded her of it again.  He had to have made this recording months ago, since his hair in it was much more close cropped than it had been lately.  Teasing her?  Ha!  She remembered all the clues he had left for them to find or had sent directly to her at the Centre over the last three years.  It had been a source of aggravation to her that he had continued to play games with her.  She wanted to be a force to be reckoned with by catching and returning him to the Centre.  Suddenly she was furious with him.  It was all his fault!  When he had escaped she had been transferred out of the corporate office where she had built a base of power and had been able to travel all over the world.  It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement with herself and Sydney assigned to capture Jarod because of their previous ties to him and supposed ability to know how he thought.  That was a laugh!  Nobody could come close to how he thought!  That's why they wanted him back.  And how dare he suggest she was a prisoner?  Her father loved and protected her!

She drew her breath in sharply, except this very morning she had been thinking the same thing.  Her father had manipulated her over the years.  There had been so many times when what her father said and what he did were two different things.  He always brushed her concerns away explaining it was all about survival in the intrigues of the Centre.  She had to admit to herself that there was only one person who had always been there for her.  Who had comforted her when mother died so long ago?  Who had been there only last year when her boyfriend Thomas had been murdered?  Who had always been on her side?  Jarod.

She remembered all the gifts he had sent her, the painting of her as a girl, the stained glass portrait as a woman, her mother's necklace, and so many others.  She remembered the Valentine's Day when she had been so rude to him on the phone and when she finally opened the box, he had sent her a card saying 'Be My Valentine.'  She bowed her head and a single tear rolled down the side of her nose.  He had said the same thing then as he had in the recording about them both being left alone.

Then like a coin being turned over, like the sun coming out from behind the eclipsing moon, like a flash flood covering a desert with water, her heart was transformed from hate to love.  All the anger and resentment she had held towards Jarod were not really for him but because of him.  She put both elbows on the desk and leaned her forehead on her hands to hold her head up as she realized the awful truth.  She was in love with Jarod and they could never be together in that happily-ever-after of fairy tales.  The Centre would never permit it and would hunt the two of them just as relentlessly as she had hunted him for the last three years.  He had known it all those long years ago when they were kids.  At last, she knew it too.

Then, like it always did, her cell phone rang at the worst possible time.  "What?" she croaked irritably.

"Miss Parker, are you all right?" asked Broots.

She took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling as she wiped the wetness off her cheek.  She sat ramrod straight in the chair, as she pushed her feelings deep down and cloaked herself with the icy, business-only attitude she was known for.  "What is it?" she demanded, pointedly ignoring his personal question.

"You'll never believe what Raines just did," he began breathlessly.

"I know that old goat is capable of anything," she interrupted.  "What have you found out about the nurse, Eleanor Black?" she demanded.

"Well, nothing yet.  We have to go back later tonight."

"Fine," she snapped, "call me back then.

"Wait, wait.  Miss Parker?" Broots called anxiously before she could hang up, "Raines said something about tracking Jarod and returning him to the Centre soon."

"Since when is he on my assignment?" Parker hissed.

"I don't know, Miss Parker.  Keep an eye out for his men.  They can be dangerous.  Do you want me to come help you?"

Parker sighed.  It wasn't fair for her to be irritated with Broots.  After all, he was one of only three people she could really depend on.  Her voice softened, "No, thanks Broots, you stay there.  You can help me best by finding out all you can about Eleanor Black, what she worked on at the Centre and what ties she may have had to my mother."

"Okay.  Be careful, Miss Parker," Broots replied in a worried tone.  "I'll call you late tonight after we search the computer's data base."  Then for once he hung up on her.

To be continued…


	7. Hunting Lioness

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Seven

Rating: PG

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Thank you kind reviewers for your words of encouragement.  I've tried to fix the time line as suggested.  Sorry, comes from having discovered this most excellent drama just before it got cancelled and watching most of the episodes out of order in reruns.  I wish they still had it on, but the rest of your efforts in fanfic have inspired me as well.  Somehow the characters keep talking and I type what I hear as fast as I can.  Hope you enjoy this next installment.

Duke University, Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday afternoon

Miss Parker found herself trailing behind Anna, the chemistry department secretary, to the chemistry lab where Jarod had been teaching for the last month.  She lugged her incredible find of his laptop computer.  She hadn't had time to search the hard drive to determine what information he had stored there, but she had figured out the password.  She still found it hard to believe that he had used her given name, her very private and generally unknown given name.  She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or angry with him.  In fact, she wasn't sure what she thought anymore.  She found herself trying to justify helping Jarod as a new tactic in catching him, but she was really motivated to find out more information about her own mother.

The secretary stopped and unlocked a door to a large laboratory and gestured inside, "Dr. Boyle stored a few things in here too since this was the only classroom that he taught in.  I'd really appreciate it if you would stay as the class arrives and get them started on today's lab.  Everyone is at a special noon seminar today.  As soon as the reception concludes, I'll make sure one of the grad students comes to take over the class."  The secretary looked shrewdly over at Parker and smiled wisely, "Don't spend your whole life cleaning up after him now."  She offered her hand and Parker shook it in surprise, "Good luck," the woman concluded and then walked back down the hall leaving Parker standing outside the classroom feeling a little dumbfounded.

Parker walked into the room, set down the stack of lab handouts on the first bench and looked around the room.  Tall, black lab bench stuck out from the walls on both sides of the room, with sinks and cabinets set between them against the walls.  The nearest wall to the hall had an array of bottled chemicals on shelves and balances ready for use on the counter below.  But across the room, up against the windows was a teacher's desk.  'Ah-ha, thought Parker, what other juicy tidbits have you left behind Jarod?'

She hefted the laptop to get a better grip on it and strode over to the desk.  Unlike the desk in the common room back in the departmental office, this desk was more like something Jarod would use.  It was messy.  There were stacks of scientific journals that had been checked out of the library, Xeroxes of papers, file folders lying every which way and most importantly, a pad of paper with notes in Jarod's neat square handwriting.  Parker set the laptop down in the chair and picked up the pad trying the decipher the chemical and medical jargon that he had written down.  The only word that made any sense to her was leukemia, the rest seemed to be about a regimen of medications.  She shook her head and thought, 'where's Sydney when you need him?'

Any further attempt to elucidate what Jarod had been researching was interrupted by the arrival of several students.  Three young men in jeans and t-shirts came boisterously into the lab and clustered by one of the lab benches.

"And then she said, I'll show you where to park your car," one bragged lifting his eyebrows with a smirk.  The other two laughed and leaned up against the table clearly ready to hear more of the first student's exploits, when his expression changed as he realized Parker was in the room.  "Well, hello there," he called out his voice now a bit deeper.

Parker straightened up from the desk and watched as the young man sauntered over to her.  He was fairly tall with blond hair and well developed muscles rippling under his one size too small tee-shirt.  He might have been good looking if he didn't remind of her brother Lyle crossed with one of Raines' muscle bound goons.  She took a breath and held it a moment as she reminded herself she was pretending to be a teacher in order to get her hands on all of Jarod's papers.  She pasted a stiff smile on her face and nodded at him.  He continued walking toward her with a big smile on his face, clearly appreciating her figure.

"My name's Troy.  Are you a new student?" he asked.

Parker shook her head stiffly, "No," she began but he interrupted her.

"Now that's a shame.  I would have been happy to help you mix up some new chemistry," he said suggestively.

"I'm the substitute teacher," she replied through gritted teeth hoping he would lay off on his pick up lines.  She was finding him immature and boorish, and trying not to lose her temper.

Troy was apparently too dense to get the hint, "You'll be much more fun to be teacher's pet with than Jarod."  He stepped right up to her reaching out to take her hand, as she clearly wasn't about to shake hands with him.

Parker snapped.  She smiled icily at him as she smoothly reached up, taking his hand and stepped seductively close to him.  "Don't you mean, Dr. Boyle?" she asked coyly.  Then in a flash she twirled, flipped him and had him laid out on his back with his right arm twisted causally in her hands and one foot on his neck.  "You really should learn your manners and show people the proper respect that they deserve," she told him.

One of the other students whistled appreciatively, but a look from Parker silenced him.  She glared at both daring them to say anything.

Finally, the one on the floor, Troy, gasped, "You must be Miss Parker!"

Startled, Parker looked down at him.  She clearly remembered that she had not given them her name.  Her eyes narrowed as she growled, "How do you know that?" and she gave his arm a little more twist.

He yelped out, "Jarod, I mean, Dr. Boyle mentioned someone like you with that name…"

Parker released him and stepped back smoothing her pants in an effort to control the adrenaline now flowing through her.  "Explain," Parker demanded.

Troy stood up rubbing his arm and a contrite expression on his face.  "One day we were joking around and I teased Jar-, Dr. Boyle, saying he needed a good woman to distract him from all his research," he nodded toward the piles on the desk.  "He said he already had all the woman he could handle.  I asked, was he married, then he got this sort of sad, far away look and said no, I keep Miss Parker as far away from me as I can."

Parker sensed a hesitation and knew there was more, "Go on," she threatened.

One of the other students cleared his throat, "Mr. Libido here asked him if you were pretty and could he have your phone number."

She looked over at the other two who were still standing by the lab table, "And he said," she prompted.

"He said you were as beautiful and cunning as a wild lioness on the hunt, and just as deadly."

Parker blinked.  For the second time that day she was surprised by Jarod's opinion of her and didn't know whether to be flattered or angry.

The interview was ended as several more students walked in chatting amicably among themselves.  They spotted the lab handouts on the table and picked some up before moving to another of the lab tables.  Troy moved back to the table with his friends and they too picked up some handouts and began reading over them.  Parker retreated back to the desk to gather her wits and calm down.  She stood with her back to the room staring out the window, but not even seeing the campus in the bright sunshine.  In her mind's eye, she was seeing a figure dressed in black pants and a black leather jacket running down a dark suburban street.  She felt the adrenaline flowing as she chased him, and the surprise she felt as a two dark sedans sped around the corner and screeched to a stop letting dark suited sweepers catapult out to join the chase.  She heard herself call out his name and then the sharp retort of the gun in her own hand as she lost her balance and fell slowly to the ground.  The smell of gunpowder coincided with the sight of him pitching forward and rolling as the bullet struck his shoulder.  Then she hit the ground herself and lost sight of him as everything went from slow motion to fast forward.  Somehow, he had disappeared right after she had shot him.  He was right.  She was deadly, and it was not something to be proud of.

A gentle touch on her shoulder caused her to spin reflexively in her hunter mode and she had to force herself to keep from slamming another student to the floor.  It was Amanda Blake with a bright smile on her face.

"Miss Parker, I can't believe you're really here.  You said you would be, but I didn't see how you could get in as a substitute teacher.  You and Jarod are both just amazingly talented people."  Amanda's smile faded to concern as she looked at Parker.  The look of guilt on Parker's face was quickly hidden as a curtain enclosed her emotions and she stiffened into the usual mask she wore.  "Are you alright?" Amanda asked.

Parker stared at Amanda with soulful eyes that turned from soft blue to steel as she drew a deep breath and nodded.  She stepped out into the room with complete poise and absolute control as she called the class to order.  "Good afternoon, class.  I am Miss Parker.  Dr. Boyle has been called away on urgent business and you will have new instructor next week."

"All right, is it a walk today then?" interrupted one of the students.

Parker silenced him with one of her withering glares.  "The instructions for today's lab are on the front bench," she gestured to the table nearest the door.  "I suggest you get busy."

The students quickly passed out handouts to those who had not picked one up already, and began getting out glassware and Bunsen burners to set up the experiment.  Fortunately, this was the second semester and they were adept at performing them.

Parker stood in the middle of the room exuding an air of total authority and the class worked quietly only murmuring softly to each other instead of their usual boisterous conversation.  After about ten minutes, Parker began to doubt herself again.  'What the hell am I doing here?' she demanded of herself silently.  'Daddy is right.  Emotions just get in the way of efficiency.  I just need to collect all those papers and get out of here.  I don't need to continue Jarod's stupid little game of teacher anymore.'  She moved back to the desk and began stacking all the files and papers, setting the journals from the library to the side.  

Amanda bravely walked up and called her name softly, "Miss Parker?"

Parker turned again but without the ferocity she had the first time, and looked expectantly at the girl to continue.

"I looked up in the attic like you asked and I found one file box that may have some information.  It was too late to read through it all but it is from 1969 and 1970 before she even met my Dad.  It looked like a bunch of science journals at first, until I found some photos and a journal.  I saw a photo that puzzled me.  How could you have known my mother?"  She held out an old black and white photo of a young Eleanor Black and a woman who was the mirror image of Parker.

"My mother before she died," breathed Parker as she took the photo with trembling hands.  "My mother did know your mother," she said with amazement to Amanda.  "You say there is more?"

"Yes, but I didn't read it.  It was too late, but I have it in the trunk of my car and I thought we could sort through it together after class today."

Parker nodded in agreement still staring at the photo.  This must have been the connection that Jarod had found.  But he saw it in the scientific papers he had collected on his desk.  What exactly had he found?  She was even more determined to collect the papers, but instead of just throwing them into a file box and taking them back to the Centre for analysis, she wanted to study them herself.  There was a good chance that they would disappear at the Centre if there were any negative implications to the Centre inherent in these papers.  Parker's desire for her father's approval was overshadowed by only one thing.  Her desire to find out the truth about her mother's death.  She had always been told it was suicide, but just last year Jarod had shown her evidence that her mother had been shot and murdered.  Maybe, just maybe, this woman, Eleanor Black knew the truth and if she was still alive she could tell it to Parker.  The uncharacteristic sense of guilt that had prompted her to help Amanda with this attempt at a pretend had turned into her personal crusade.  Parker was even more determined to help Amanda find her mother.


	8. Sharing Stories

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Eight:  Sharing Stories

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Thursday afternoon

Emily rocked her small son humming softly.  Her daughter was already asleep and she wanted this child to go down for his nap too.  Ordinarily, she enjoyed holding the baby, but today she was anxious to have some time to herself.  He fussed a bit as she lay him down in the crib, but he settled down sleepily as she patted his back a few times.  She tiptoed out of the room and peeked in on her daughter who was sound asleep.

She hated to be a snoop, but her curiosity was getting the best of her.  That morning she had emptied her unplanned guest's duffel bag and had done all his laundry.  The leather jacket she had washed by hand and hung to dry in the bathroom.  The heavy weight in the bag had been revealed as a silver suitcase.  She had opened it briefly determining that it didn't hold any clothes but was some kind of electronic device.  Then the baby had started crying and she had left it on the folding table in the laundry room.

Deliberately walking past the washroom next to the kitchen, she went to the back bedroom and stood over the bed looking down at the sleeping man.  He had barely moved from how she had left him almost two hours earlier.  His dark hair was damp against his forehead and he had a slight frown even in his sleep.  He had a small mole by the corner of his right eye that she hadn't really noticed before.  His nose was straight and his long face ended in a firm jaw, but she wasn't sure if he was good looking or not under the scraggly beard.  She pulled a tissue from the box on the nightstand and gently wiped his forehead not wanting to wake him.  Short of calling an ambulance, she had done all she could do and his recovery was up to him.  Her days in the hospital had taught her that sometimes recovery had more to do with the patient's will to fight than her medical treatments.  He needed the healing power of sleep more than anything now.

Just as deliberately, she now allowed herself to be drawn to the washroom and the mysterious silver case.  She opened it again fingering the screen in the lid.  The device resembled a laptop computer except that the keyboard was much more complex with dozens of extra symbols beyond the standard characters.  Somehow the design looked like it was old fashioned except she had never seen anything like it.  There was a small compartment along the front lip and finding the catch she lifted its lid to see a row of small silver disks stacked vertically along the row, probably a hundred of them.  She carefully slid the first one out and imprinted on the center was merely a date—April 25, 1964.  Curiously she lifted it and tilted it in the light creating rainbow-like diffraction patterns on its surface.  It was the most curious looking computer disk she'd ever seen.  There were a couple of switches and a small opening clearly made to accept these little disks.  She experimented with flipping the switches expecting a light to come on or the screen to light up, but nothing seemed to happen on the screen.  She started to push the little silver disk in the opening and felt a mechanism pull it smoothly out of her finger tips.  The screen suddenly sprang to life.  It was in black and white.  It had a wide angle view of a room where a small dark haired boy about 4 or 5 was building a tall block tower that looked familiar some how but she couldn't place it.  The child called out, "Hey!  I'm finished!" and suddenly a man's face thrust into view from the side

"Thirty-six hours and he's already demonstrating more talent than any of our others," he said to someone behind the camera.

Mesmerized she watched disk after disk losing track of time completely.  He sat suspended in some kind of hanging ball…he was taped with all sorts of monitors, crying out "I'm burning up!"… he crouched with a rifle in his hands, a familiar scene of an open convertible driving along on a screen in front of him and him shouting, "I can't do it alone!"…he worked feverishly on a box that blew up in his face with a loud bang and as the cloud of smoke cleared a harsh voice said, "Let that be a lesson to you:  don't cut the wrong wire."  She shook her head in horror as she realized this boy was being monitored continuously.  She began skipping along picking disks at random watching the boy grow up into the man.  She skipped to the very last one and saw it was indeed Jarod, perhaps only a few years younger than now.  She stood with her mouth open, blinking, not sure even what to think.

"Enjoying my home movies?" a deep voice asked behind her and she startled guiltily.  He was leaning heavily against the door frame but his brown eyes looked much clearer although pain shone clearly there.

"I'm sorry," Emily apologized gesturing, "I was doing laundry and was curious what this was…" she trailed off.  "My God, why did they do that to you?" she blurted finally.

Jarod rolled his head to the side and looked embarrassed, "To control me."

Emily realized her knees were feeling shaky and wondered just how long she had stood there watching the movies, if that was what you could really call these surveillance videos.  They were more like records of an experiment, than records of a child's life.  She didn't know what to say to him so instead she said, "You must be hungry.  Come sit at the table and I'll fix you something."

They both walked slowly and silently to the table.  She pulled the chair out for him and he sank down gratefully onto the seat.  She turned back to the kitchen, pulled a plastic container from the refrigerator and popped it in the microwave.  While it has humming, she filled two glasses with ice and then sun tea from a large jar sitting on the counter.  "Do you want sugar in your tea?" she asked.  He shook his head no and she brought the glasses which he immediately began sipping.  Returning to the refrigerator she pulled out a tub of margarine and grabbed some silverware from the drawer and set then on the table.  Once more she returned with a loaf of homemade bread and finally the steaming hot container from the microwave, "It's lentil soup," she offered as she set it down in front of him.

Jarod leaned over the steaming bowl and inhaled deeply.  His stomach growled loudly and he couldn't honestly remember the last time he had had anything to eat.  He picked up a spoon and tasted the soup gingerly, but his face broke out into a wide grin as he swallowed the first bite.  "It's delicious," he complimented her and she sat down to join him.  He ate several more bites while she sliced a thick piece of bread and spread margarine on it and handed it to him.  He swallowed some tea and then started on the bread.  He didn't look up until the whole piece was almost gone, then he mumbled "Delicious," again with his mouth half full, looking rather sheepish as he devoured the meal.

She smiled at him over her glass of tea.  She looked like she was about to say something when the baby began crying.  "Help yourself to more," she gestured at the bread and then rose, walking out of the room to the hall to get the little boy.

Jarod enjoyed the meal immensely, eating the whole bowl of soup and two more slices of bread.  She was gone a while and he could hear her murmuring to the baby while she changed his diapers.  The two came back in the room and the little boy had a red cheek with a wrinkle mark on it where he had slept on a fold in the sheet.  He still looked a little groggy and was sucking on his middle two fingers, the index and pinky resting on his cheeks on either side of his mouth.  "Do you want any more?" she offered generously.

"No, thank you.  It was very good.  I'll get some tea though," he replied struggling to stand up.

"I got it," she said.  Deftly carrying the child on her hip, she picked up both their glasses and filled them with more tea.  She carried them back to the table one at a time and sat down again taking a sip from hers.  "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked and they both knew to what she was referring.  They locked eyes in silence for a long moment and Emily could sense the gears turning in his head as he made his decision.

Jarod stared at the woman.  He knew almost nothing about her.  He vaguely remembered meeting her in the grocery store and getting in her car, but between the pain of his gunshot wound and the growing infection he had barely been able to stay conscious.  Could he really trust her?  How many of the DSA discs had she seen?  How much did she know or guess about him already?  If he wasn't completely honest, then he had a feeling she could sense that in him.  She had brought him to her home and cared for his injuries.  His gut instincts told him that she was trustworthy, and his experiences the last few years had taught him to listen to his feelings.

"They took me from my family when I was about four," he began, and Jarod told her his story glad to share it with someone he felt he could really trust.  "I was raised by a corporation called the Centre.  They kept me isolated from almost everyone except my teacher Sydney.  I could never go outside.  They controlled what I ate, when I slept, everything that I did, and if I didn't comply I was punished.  I can imagine so well that I feel like other people in any situation.  I can be a doctor, a fireman, an engineer, a pilot, absolutely anyone.  I can pretend to be that person so well that you would never even suspect that I wasn't what I said I was.  They used me.  They developed and exploited my natural abilities in order to make money.  When I was younger I believed their lies that my work was being used to help people.  Then I discovered that they were corrupting my ideas, twisting them inside out to hurt and kill innocent people.  I had to stop them.  I had to atone for how my work had been used.  Since I've escaped I've tried to help people that I have met, but I have to be careful since the Centre continues to look for me.  So far they have been restrained because they wanted me back alive, but now I'm not so sure," he looked down at his shoulder.  "It will be much harder to escape them if they don't mind bringing me back dead."

He didn't even notice she had started nursing the baby until she moved the child to sit up on her lap and began absentmindedly patting him on the back to burp.  Jarod blushed slightly but she didn't even notice as she stared out the window over his shoulder at the dying afternoon.  The drippy, gray sky was slowly darkening into a wet and gloomy night.  Somehow the weather matched the mood.  Emily was horrified and enthralled at the same time with his account of his life.

Finally realizing he had stopped talking, she shifted her gaze from the window back to his eyes.  He could see both pity and respect in her eyes that had not been there before.  She opened her mouth to speak but before anything came out she was interrupted by the little girl, Kimie.

"Mommy, I'm hungry.  How come it's night time already?" whined the little girl.

"Oh, Sweetie, Mommy's sorry.  I should have woken you up from your nap two hours ago.  I'll get you some milk and some dinner."  Emily stepped quickly into the living room and pulled out of the corner a large plastic disk with a sling seat in the center.  She settled the baby into the excersaucer to play.  Turning back to the little girl, she swept her up with a hug, settled her in a chair with a booster seat and pushed her up to the table.  She cut a thin slice of bread, buttered it and set it in front of the hungry little girl.  While Kimie took a big bite out of the middle, her mom went in the kitchen to get her a glass of milk and some soup.

Kimie ate the bread almost as quickly as Jarod had earlier.  As she dropped the crust to the placemat, she smiled over at him with margarine smeared on both cheeks.  He grinned back at her delighted with her childish manners.  Behind her he could see the baby bouncing and gurgling happily in the living room.  The table lamps glowed warmly casting a yellow light around the room that contrasted from the cold, dark gray outside the windows.  The house was small and the furnishings simple but in Jarod's mind it was the richest house he'd ever been in.  His eyes filled with tears as he thought of the simple joys of childhood that had been stolen from him.  He couldn't remember anything of his life before he had been taken to the Centre.

Emily came back from the kitchen carrying with the child's dinner.  As she set it down, the little girl pointed across the table, "Mommy, I think he's owie again.  See?"

Seeing the haunted, stricken look on his face, Emily was immediately concerned.  Her heart went out to the lost little boy that was still part of the man.  "It will be alright," she reassured him, her hand reaching out to touch his arm lightly.

He looked up at her sadly, his throat too tight to even speak.

Emily took a deep breath and smiled brightly trying to cover up the awkwardness.  "What kind of doctor am I?  You have been up too long.  I'm getting you right back to bed.  You need some more antibiotics, and a lot more sleep.  Come on," she ordered offering her hand and pulling him up out of the chair.  Gratefully, he followed her.  The physical and emotional pain were too much for him to even think for himself and he simply did as he was told.  "I'll check on you later," she promised as she quite literally tucked him in.  He felt like a small boy in the large, soft bed and closed his eyes, gratefully feeling the unconsciousness of sleep sweep all his pain away.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday Evening

True to her word, Anna the secretary had sent a graduate student who was able to help the students and had left Miss Parker free to organize Jarod's desk.  Parker had carefully looked through papers and made notes of the titles and dates of every single journal from the library, while Amanda and the class had worked on the afternoon's lab.  Parker found her herself staring at the photograph of her mother and Amanda's mother again and again.  It was taken inside, probably in a hospital room judging by the piece of equipment on the side of the room and it was from a low angle looking up at the two women's smiling faces.  The question was, who had taken the picture?

After the class ended, Parker found herself driving along the highway following Amanda's car on the road back to Raleigh from Duke University in Durham.  She was congratulating herself on having collected not only all the files from the lab, but also Jarod's computer from the departmental office.  Suddenly, the fact that she had found them at all seemed like a glaring warning to her.  Why hadn't they been collected immediately after sighting Jarod?  Lyle and all the sweepers had scoured the neighborhood and the sewers, but it appeared they hadn't even checked the most obvious places.  Parker's radar went up and she sensed a trap.  She recalled her conversation with Broots earlier.  He warned her that Raines was up to something.  She was supposed to be in charge of the recapture of Jarod, but someone had clearly ordered all those sweepers into the field.  If Raines and Lyle joined forces against her she would have to be very careful.  It would be just like Lyle to set her up.  If she brought all things back to the Centre, then she would not receive praise from her father, but anger for having disobeyed him and gone out alone again.  Could she even be sure these were authentic?  What if Lyle had manufactured this evidence to get her off of Jarod's trail?  Come to think of it, how did he know to bring the sweepers to Durham in the first place?  She slammed her hand against the steering wheel in anger and frustration.  They were secretly monitoring her office again.  She hated being treated like some peon, untrusted employee.  She was a Parker!

Her thoughts were interrupted as Amanda turned into the parking lot of a restaurant.  She signaled and followed in anger at first, but the smoky smell of grilled meat made her mouth water and her stomach growled loudly.  She hadn't eaten all day.  The last thing she had eaten was a soft bagel at the mall the night before.

Amanda called cheerily to her as they both got out of their parked cars.  "Let me buy you dinner for helping me.  I suddenly realized I couldn't read all those papers without some food in my stomach.  I hope you are hungry too."

Parker nodded in agreement, "I have to admit it smells pretty good."

The two women walked into the restaurant and Amanda held the door open for Miss Parker.  "This place has great food and can get really crowed on the weekends.  It seemed perfect to stop now just before the dinner rush."  A waitress seated them right away and handed them menus to peruse while she fetched them glasses of ice water.

Parker remained silent as she looked over the variety on the menu, still fretting about her tenuous position at the Centre.  Amanda studied her surreptiously over her menu.  When they had walked out of the chemistry building, Miss Parker had seemed pleased, but now she seemed angry.  She hoped that she hadn't made Parker upset by suggesting dinner.  Amanda found her so hard to read.  Jarod had been so open and almost anxious to make eye contact and conversation.  Miss Parker was closed and withdrawn, with a touch of aristocratic aloofness that rather insulted Amanda.  "I know I'm younger than you, but I feel like we share a similar bond," Amanda began hesitantly.

Parker looked at her coldly with an arched eyebrow, seeming to dare Amanda to compare herself to her.

"I mean," Amanda faltered, "We both lost our mothers as girls."

Parker blinked as she really looked at the college girl across the table for the first time.  She still had the thin body frame and face of a teenager.  Her simple hair style and lack of makeup made her look young, but her eyes wore an expression of someone much older.  She had experienced and overcome her grief, but she still felt the loss of her mother.  "How old were you?" Parker asked gently.

"It was just before I turned fifteen.  I was going to go to a concert with some friends but we cancelled everything and I didn't celebrate my birthday that year, or even the next," Amanda answered sadly.

"I know," nodded Parker, "holidays and special occasions lose their meaning when you are reminded too much of the person who is gone."

"How old were you?" asked Amanda.

Parker stared off in space, reluctant to share her story because she knew she would find it hard to repress her emotions.

"I'm sorry," Amanda quickly filled the silence, "you probably don't want to talk about it.  I shouldn't ask such personal questions."

"No, it's okay," replied Parker.  "I asked you the same question," she paused.  "I guess I was trying to decide which time."

"What do you mean, which time?" asked Amanda in confusion.

Parker stared down at her hands forcing her fingers to remain motionless and not fidget.  "I was ten when they told me she committed suicide.  I really missed her when I was the age you were, fourteen, after my father sent me away to boarding school.  Then last year I learned that she had been murdered, and it has brought all those feelings back again."

"I can't imagine going away to boarding school.  My Dad and I are best friends.  I don't think either one of us would have survived the last four years if we didn't have each other.  In fact, I haven't told him anything about this investigation Jarod started.  I don't even want to get my own hopes up.  Do you think there's a chance my mother could still be alive?"

"I don't know," Parker replied honestly, "I haven't seen the connection in all the information we've found that Jarod saw."

The waitress arrived with their water and took their order for dinner.  Parker asked Amanda leading questions and let her do all the talking.  Amanda told her about her happy childhood, the strong bond that she shared with her father, and how she choose to go to college nearby to stay living at home with him.  Parker found herself becoming irrationally jealous of the young woman.  It seemed so simple when she listened to Amanda.  Why was it so hard for her to bond with her own father?

They were finishing up the large salads they had ordered with grilled chicken strips artfully strewn across the bed of greens when Amanda turned the tables on Parker.  "I've been hogging all the conversation.  Enough about me.  What about you?  Where did you go to college?"

Parker nearly choked on the bite of chicken, "Tokyo," she finally replied.

"You mean Japan?" Amanda said in amazement.

Parker merely nodded yes.  She wasn't used to the give and take of conversation between people when they share stories and become friends.  She had always been the one in charge, the interviewer, and never shared herself.  She had held herself above other people like her father had taught her, and so she had developed very few adult friends.

Amanda could see that Parker was not going to elaborate, so she decided to try more recent history.  "I'm curious about something you said about finding out about your mother's death for a second time.  You said you just found out that your mother was murdered.  How did that happen?  Is there a police investigation?"

Parker's comfort level suddenly dropped to subzero levels.  She had been enjoying the meal, but now she felt her heart race and her muscles tense.  She didn't want Amanda to know too much about her life.  The reality of the Centre was too horrible for this innocent young woman to fully realize.  Maybe she could give just enough truth to satisfy her.  "Actually, Jarod is the one who showed me the evidence that she was shot."

"Oh, did you hire him to investigate it for you?" asked Amanda.

Parker actually laughed, "Me?  Hire Jarod.  Not hardly, he volunteered his services without my consent."

"I thought you two were friends, and that he asked you to help me," responded Amanda growing confused by Miss Parker's comments.

"I haven't talked to Jarod in several weeks.  I believe you were the last person to talk to him on Tuesday night," Parker confessed.  "By the way, did he tell you where he was going?" 

"No, just that something had come up and that he had to leave town right away, and that he would ask some associates of his to help.  How did you know to come if you haven't spoken with him?"

"He left a note," replied Parker simply.

Amanda studied Parker a moment surprised at the changes in her attitude.  One moment Parker was pleased, then angry, then calm, the next tense, then laughing and now rather depressed.  "You're worried about him," she observed wisely.  Parker startled and stared back.  She didn't want to admit to herself that she was worried, let alone to this stranger.  But the sincere look in Amanda's eyes as she said, "I'm worried too," made Parker trust her.  Parker's eyes filled with moisture as the flood of emotions that had been too long dammed threatened to burst out after only one day of letting them peek out.

Fortunately, the waitress returned to take their plates and leave the check.  Amanda quickly snatched the bill and stood up, "I'll cover this.  I have to go to the ladies' room.  I'll be right back."

Gratefully, Parker watched the young woman walk away and leaving her alone to compose herself.  It was time to get back to Jarod's lair at the Private Investigations shop, dig through all the papers and find the connection he had seen.  That would be the clue to lead her to him, to more truth about her own mother, and possibly even to Amanda's mother.  Parker had grown to like the girl and hoped her family life could have the happy ending that her own life could never have.

Houston, Texas, Thursday night

While Jarod slept, Emily fed and entertained her children and went through the evening routines of bath time and reading at bedtime.  But the whole time in the back of her mind she was trying to sort out the story Jarod had told her.  A genius who could become anyone he wanted to be and so completely impersonate the character that he could fool everyone?  It was almost as farfetched as the story of this Centre place.  She was as well read and as well educated as anyone could be.  If it was as sinisterly powerful as he described it, then how come she had never even heard of it?  On the other hand, the video discs she had watched that afternoon were like nothing she had ever seen before.  They were clearly real recordings.  And the pain she had seen in his eyes was real emotional pain from having grown up with that twisted childhood.

"Mommy, Mom-my!" Kimie interrupted her circling train of thoughts.

"Yes, sweetie," Emily focused on her daughter sitting on the bed next to her.  She had been listening to the little girl read her favorite Dr. Seuss book for the umpteenth time and had found it hard to pay attention to her with the mystery of Jarod rolling in the back of her mind.

"I said, How come he knew our special song?"

"Who?  What song?" Emily asked tiredly, staring down at the book in the child's hands.

"The sick man," the little girl replied impatiently.

"You mean Jarod?  He wasn't singing any song, honey."

The little girl looked up at Emily with a suddenly very grown up look in her face.  Emily felt like she had become the child as Kim tried very hard to explain to her, "How come Mr. Jarod knew our song at the store yester-night?"

"Yesterday," Emily corrected absently and stared off in space again.  So much had happened, she had almost forgotten the circumstances of why she had decided to bring this strange man Jarod home.

"Why, Mommy?" demanded the little girl again.

Emily smiled proudly down at her daughter amazed at the little girl's memory and perception.  Why indeed?  He had sung along on the little nonsense song that her grandmother used to sing to her and that she had taught to the little girl.  This made Jarod seem even more a mysterious than before.  She shrugged, "I guess his Mommy taught him just like I taught you."

The little girl nodded back satisfied with that answer and finished reading the last few pages.  Emily tucked her in and kissed her goodnight on the forehead.  She walked into the kitchen and began doing the dishes all her thoughts a whirl.  Was the explanation really that simple?  Did his family share the same nonsense song?

Suddenly she dropped the spoon she was washing with a clatter into the sink and slapped the spigot down to turn off the water.  A half remembered story had just come to mind and she needed to talk to her mother right away.


	9. Making Connections

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Nine:  Making Connections

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Thanks again for the kind reviews.  I appreciate your encouragement!  Another chapter is on the way, but thought I'd post at least this one….

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, Thursday night

Broots tapped his foot impatiently as the last reel of magnetic tape was loaded on to the mainframe computer.  He had gone home as usual, picking his daughter up from her after school care and feeding her dinner.  After making sure she was set up to finish her homework and get ready for bed, he returned to the Centre.  He hated leaving her alone too often, but now that she was twelve she could stay home by herself and not need a babysitter.  He had told his daughter that he would be gone for only a few hours and would be home to tuck her in, but he was beginning to doubt if that was true.  He was surprised at the amount of data that had been stored for the years 1969 and 1970.  He had decided to limit his search for information on the projects that the nurse, Eleanor Black, had worked on to the time just proceeding her disappearance from the Centre which coincided with the time of Catherine Parker's apparent suicide.  Miss Parker was sure there was a connection between her mother and this woman and he was determined to find it for her.

He had uncovered lots of secret information, recovered seemingly destroyed information and generally performed the impossible for Miss Parker when it came to information technology.  He knew he wasn't the bravest, but he was the best computer hacker.  He had brought along a portable hard disc that could probably store more data than all the of reels of magnetic tape put together.  He had devised an adaptor to interface the old technology with the new and as each reel had been loaded into the mainframe, an echo had been sent through the serial port to his modern hard drive.  He had quickly realized that searching the data base would be more efficiently accomplished using current query language and wanted to get back to his own tech office and all its useful machines.  However, here he was, still in the creepy, quiet, dead-end corridor of the medical wing downloading another tape.  How many was it now, nine?  He originally thought there would be two or three, maybe four, but he was already double the estimate.  Whatever they had been working on, they had taken the pains to enter a lot of data into the computer storage system.  What could it have been?  While he waited he ran a test routine that he had written that would help him determine the structure of the database, to essentially give him the category labels that the data was organized under.  He had actually made some headway there, determining that about a third was routine office visit information, maybe half was devoted to a single project named Leukogenesis and the remaining data was heavily encrypted for some other project.  He was betting that the last set of data was where the real smoking gun of the Centre's nefarious interests lay.

Finally, the magnetic tape spun off the reel and he was done collecting data.  He quickly restored the reel to its place in the racks, shut down the antiquated but still sturdy machine and repacked his satchel with his tools and the portable hard drive.  Broots shut off the lights and then opened the door a crack to peek cautiously for any movement in the hallway.  It was as quiet as ever.  Stepping out, he closed the door softly behind him.  A shiver ran down his spine as he turned and his gaze caught the door across the hall where a man had been callously murdered by Raines earlier that day.  Nervously, Broots sidled down the hall keeping to one wall like it protected him.

Within a few minutes, he was out of the medical wing and back in the main offices of the Centre where the tech center and his office were.  He was beginning to relax now that he was back on home territory, and he glanced down at his watch to check the time hoping to be home before ten to tuck in his daughter.  So he was completely caught off guard as Mr. Lyle rounded a corner and barreled into Broots nearly knocking him down.

"Broots, good, where's my sister?" demanded Lyle.

"I d-d-don't know," stuttered Broots.

"She isn't here, and she isn't answering her home phone," Lyle said glaring at Broots like he had hidden her away.  His eyes narrowed as he studied Broots, "What are you doing here so late?  I thought you always left at five to get your kid."

"I d-d-did.  I came back to work on something for Miss Parker," replied Broots defensively.

Lyle arched an eyebrow, "Analyzing the clues from Jarod's last lair are you?"

Broots nodded mutely.  He knew he wasn't a very good liar.  He couldn't let Lyle know what he was really analyzing.

Lyle visibly relaxed as his hunched shoulders dropped and he rolled his head to the side to crack his neck.  "I told the Chairman that she'd gather all that junk.  I've always maintained that collecting and saving Jarod's toys was a waste of time.  It's never led to his capture.  Besides, we really surprised him this time.  He didn't have time to leave his taunting false clues."

Broots stared at Lyle in dawning realization.  He must have come from a chewing out by Mr. Parker over the last bungled capture of Jarod.  But if Lyle hadn't collected any evidence from Jarod's last pretend, then had Miss Parker collected it after he left her at Jarod's second lair at the private investigation shop?

Lyle smirked superiorly at Broots, "Well, I'm going to dinner now.  You stay and analyze Jarod's trash.  I'll find him using standard search techniques before my sister ever does with her idiotic method," Lyle boasted, then turned sharply on the slick soles of his Italian leather shoes and strode off down the hall.

Broots stared after the man for a minute and then hurried on to his own office.  'I better warn Miss Parker to collect everything if she hasn't already.  But not until after I get this information analyzed.  I don't want her mad at me,' he thought to himself.  He quickly unpacked the hard drive from his satchel and attached its cable to his own state of the art computer.  He set a subroutine going on the encrypted data searching for password to unlock it and then began a search on the other data looking for entries containing the name of the nurse, Eleanor Black.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Thursday Night

Meanwhile, Parker and Amanda had returned to Jarod's apartment over the private investigation shop.  Parker had been reading through all the scientific papers that she had found on his desk in the lab, while Amanda was sorting through the box of papers that had been her mother's.  Parker was primarily reading the summary and conclusions from each scientific paper and skimming over all the details of the actual experiments and clinical trials that were described.  They were primarily about the medical procedures for treating leukemia and showed progress in the success rate of the treatments.  Parker was a visual learner and she was carefully laying the papers out on the floor in chronological order.  She was looking for a pattern in the progression of treatments that would give her a clue to what Jarod had seen.  She knew he had been able to read and understand everything and had made his conclusions based on the details, but her mind didn't work at the same level that his did.  However, her method had been highly successful for her over the years, and she hoped it would be again.

While Parker paced back and forth reading and laying papers down on the floor, Amanda sat on the small, dilapidated couch with the box next to her.  She sifted through the contents wistfully, her mind more on memories of her mother than on the task at hand.  When she came across a copy of a scientific paper, she looked up at Miss Parker and asked, "Do you think this is a connection to all those papers you are sorting through?"

Parker stepped over her paper river to the couch and snatched the paper out of the girl's outstretched hand.  It was an original reprint that authors could order from the publisher at the same time their article was published in the scientific journal so that they could hand them out in their resumes.  More than that, it matched the oldest paper that she had found so far.  It had been published in January of 1970 and all the rest of the research papers seemed to radiate out from its starting point like bowling pins behind the first pin.  She studied the two authors' names, William R. Haines and Joseph Brown.  She didn't recognize either and they clearly weren't female.  She reread the paper and really looked at the experimental procedures.  They only thing she noted was the exceptionally small number of patients included in the trial since there were only eight.  Most trials had hundreds of patients to get statistically good conclusions.  Perhaps since this was a new procedure and since only one patient had died while they other seven had showed dramatic recovery from their illness, then the publisher had gone ahead with the paper's publication.

Parker shook her head and handed the paper back to Amanda.  "I can't see it," she sighed in exasperation.  "What connection can there be?"

Amanda began to read the paper, while Parker stood with her hands on her hips, staring out the window at the dark street below and absently watching a car pass by slowly.  She repeated the names of the authors silently to herself, a dawning of realization beginning to form in her brain.  Quickly, she stepped back to her pattern on the floor and readjusted a few papers so that the time progression also included rows of papers that were written by the same authors.  Joseph Brown had been a lead researcher on numerous papers following the first one, then his contributions ended in the late 1980's.  There was a break of several years, and then a new set of authors picked up in the mid-1990's.  But never did this William R. Haines reappear.  Parker gasped aloud, "What if the "H" were silent?" she asked herself.

"What?" asked Amanda in confusion.

Parker shook her head at her, "You don't want to know."

Amanda shrugged and looked back down at the paper.  Unlike Parker, she was reading the bibliography section too, skimming down the list of references to previous papers that had been published hoping to spot her mother's name.  Then it was her turn to gasp aloud.  "Look at this!" she exclaimed and jumped off the couch holding the paper out to Parker.

Parker looked at the section to which the girl was pointing at the end of the paper following all the references.  "Acknowledgements:  Thanks to our technicians, Phil Reed and John Howerton, and especially to our nurse, Eleanor Black, for the exceptional care she gave all our patients," she read aloud.  "Oh my!  She did work at the Centre and probably for Raines back when he was a doctor," Parker realized.  "Come here.  Help me look at the rest of these papers for acknowledgements," she commanded Amanda.

The two women crouched along the row of research papers flipping to the end of each paper, scanning for any further mention of Amanda's mother.  Joseph Brown had some acknowledgements to assistants and graduate students in the first couple of papers and then discontinued the practice.  It wasn't until the next set of papers that started in the 1990's that they found another acknowledgement.  "Thank you to my research assistant, Evelyn White for discovering an old set of papers that set us on this fruitful avenue of research," read Amanda.

"Your mother changed her name from Eleanor Black to Helen White before she met your father.  Now here's an Evelyn White.  Did you know that Eleanor and Evelyn are both derivatives of Helen?" observed Parker.

Amanda stared at Parker with her mouth open.  "Do you mean my mother really is still alive?" she finally managed to croak out.  Parker nodded.  Amanda's face reflected the range of emotions she was experiencing from amazement, to joy, to anger and finally sadness.  Tears dripped down her face and she asked Parker in a broken voice, "Why would she put me through this hell the last four years thinking that she was dead?"

Parker agonized with the young woman and reached out to touch her hand gently, "I'm sure she thought she was protecting you?"

"From what?!" wailed Amanda.

"The Centre," Parker replied sadly, "the Centre."

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, Thursday night

Broots looked at his watch yet again and sighed deeply.  It was getting late and he needed to get home.  More than that, he needed to call Miss Parker.  He dreaded telling her that he hadn't found any connection to her mother in the data he could scan, and that so far his attempts to decrypt the remaining data had failed.  Squaring his shoulders, he picked up his phone and dialed Miss Parker's cell phone.  He at least had to tell her about his run in with Mr. Lyle.

The phone rang twice and then he heard her customary, "What?"

"I recovered some computer files from the medical wing for the years 1969 and 1970, but I'm still analyzing the data," he started with the positive message first.

"And…" she answered sensing he was leaving something out.

"Lyle confronted me this evening.  Did you gather evidence from Jarod's last work place and lair?" he asked hesitantly.

"Of course," she snapped.  "Why didn't Lyle ?  I was beginning to get suspicious that he was setting me up again."

"Apparently he thinks it's a waste of time.  But I think he got a chewing out by the Chairman and that's why he was looking for you, but found me," Broots replied all in a rush.

"Lyle deserves more than a chewing out," she said darkly.

"So how's it going there?" Broots asked.

"Actually, I've found good evidence in some scientific papers that Jarod left behind at the university that Eleanor Black did indeed work at the Centre.  I think maybe under Raines.  Some project about treating leukemia," she replied.

"There's a whole lot of data here about a project called Leukogenesis," admitted Broots.  "But all the references to Nurse Black that I've checked show her caring for some children.  I didn't really look too carefully because I was looking for a connection to Catherine Parker."

There was a long silence at the other end of the phone, then Miss Parker murmured rather dreamily, "Fail…Fate…Faith…"

"Huh?" responded Broots rather idiotically.

"Leukemia.  Faith.  Of course," Miss Parker replied in a more normal voice.

"M-M-Miss Parker?" asked Broots

"Do those files give the actual names of the children treated?" she snapped in her usual impatient tone.

"Sure, just a minute, I'll return to that part of the data.  Umm, let's see here, four boys and four girls.  All about the same age of 10 years.  All with a similar type of blood cell cancer.

"Their names, Broots," she growled.

"Yeah, here they are, Tom Brown, Susan Chambers, Frank Davidson, George Munos, Faith Parker, Allyson Read, Robert Smith, Diane Valertti."

"Does it mention the outcome of their treatment?" she asked with a tight throat already knowing the answer.

"They all showed marked improvement if not complete remission, except for one who died, Faith Parker.  Parker?" Broots replied beginning to see the connection.

"She was my adopted sister, that I barely even knew before she died," Parker replied sadly.  "That's the connection to my mother.  They both cared for the same sick little girl.  And that must be who took the picture of the two of them," she said more to herself in realization.

"Picture?"  Broots echoed.

"Never mind.  Look, Broots, you go home to your own little girl tonight.  Then tomorrow morning you call in saying she's sick, but make arrangements for her godmother to watch her this weekend.  I want you catch the first flight out of there tomorrow morning to meet me," she paused a moment and he could hear her snapping her fingers, "hand me that paper…meet me at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas."

"Houston?" Broots echoed still feeling lost in the conversation.

"Take a commercial airline, not the corporate jet," she continued to order.  "We don't want them to know I'm not there, and we don't want to be followed this time.  I think we just may find Eleanor Black and I can finally get some straight answers about my mother's death.  And, if I'm right, we may just capture Wonder Boy."

"Jarod?" Broots continued in his one word questions.

"He wouldn't have assumed I'd actually help Amanda.  He'd have tried to finish looking for her mother himself.  He's always trying to reconnect broken families.  He's a hopeless romantic," she finished in a derisive tone.  The flush of pride at figuring out the clues, and the prospect of the continuation of the chase rekindled her huntress instincts.  "I'll catch him yet," she vowed.


	10. Family Tree

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Ten:  Family Tree

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Friday Morning

Emily woke to bright sunlight filling the bedroom.  She had gone to bed late and had lain awake for several hours unable to stop her mind from going around in circles over Jarod.  The short conversation she had had with her mother last night had only served to heighten her curiosity.  Emily had begun to question her mother, but once she mentioned having met a man named Jarod, her mother refused to talk about the family over the phone anymore.  Her mother informed Emily that she would drive down from Austin in the morning and promptly hung up on her.

Stretching, Emily sat up from the pallet she had fixed on the floor and looked over at the large bed where she expected to see the object of her curiosity still asleep and recovering.  But to her surprise the injured man was no where in sight.  Glancing at the clock, she was additionally surprised to see it was after eight.  The baby usually woke her up by seven, but she hadn't heard a thing.  Listening now, she faintly heard the sound of the television in the front room.  Quickly pulling her bathrobe around her shoulders, she padded quietly out of the room and through the kitchen to the front of the house.

Standing quietly in the doorway, she saw Jarod and both children sitting on the couch watching Barney.  The baby, Will, sat in his lap teething happily on a piece of bagel with Jarod's good left arm wrapped loosely around him.  Kimie lay curled up next to him with her head on his right leg and her arms wrapped around her stuffed Barney doll.  Emily smiled at the rapt expression on all their faces as they watched the children's program.  Unwilling to disturb them yet, she walked back into the kitchen and quietly began making coffee and preparing breakfast.

Jarod was amused by the program unlike your average adult.  The catchy children's tunes were all new to him and he enjoyed the little girl's attempts to sing along.  The smell of coffee made him realize that Emily had gotten up and he was surprised she hadn't come to find them.  He considered getting up, but was enjoying the children cuddled up to him too much.  Kimie startled him by suddenly sitting up.  Jarod thought she was going to run to her mother, but instead she stood on the couch next to him and threw a small arm around his neck and leaned against his shoulder singing, "I love you, You love me, We're a happy family…."  Pain shot through his arm but he channeled the sensation away, effectively ignoring the pain and instead focusing on the sweet girl and the cuddly infant.

After pulling on a simple dress, Emily found the coffee finished brewing and poured two mugs, taking a grateful sip of hers then setting it down again.  She came into the living room carrying a mug of coffee for Jarod and found him with a big stupid grin on his face as the little girl sang and the baby gurgled.  She couldn't help but grin at them with a brilliant smile of her own.  The baby promptly dropped his bagel and reached his chubby arms towards her, "Mamamam!"  Emily set the mug on the side table and scooped the child up in her arms.  Noticing the girl leaning on Jarod, she reached out a hand to the little girl too and pulled her down off the couch.

"Honey, Mr. Jarod has an owie remember?  Let's leave him alone, okay?"

Jarod shook his head at her, "No, its alright.  I can't remember ever having a lovelier morning," and his eyes sparkled with genuine delight.

"I do this every morning and I have to admit to getting a little tired of the I Love You song, but when I see it through your eyes I see how lucky I am," she admitted.  "Thanks for getting up with the kids.  I stayed up too late last night."

"I heard the baby fuss and then Kimie talking to him.  You looked so peaceful in your sleep that I wanted to make it up to you for everything you've done to help me," replied Jarod.

"I a big helper too," Kimie chimed in proudly.

"She knew where to get the bagel for the baby and how to turn on the TV," explained Jarod reaching out to tousle the little girl's hair.  "Thanks for sharing your family with me," he smiled back at Emily.

"Well, I think I'm going to share a lot more," she said.  "My mother is coming for a visit.  I bet you'd like to clean up and change before she gets here."

Jarod stood up and looked worried, "I should probably leave."

"No way," Emily replied sternly, "I want you to meet her.  I think you'll find it interesting," she said cryptically.

Jarod looked down at himself.  He was still wearing the same pair of gray sweatpants she had dressed him after removing his blood stained clothes.  He had no shirt on, just the bandages on his right shoulder, and they were in need of changing as well.  He ran his left hand through his greasy hair and shrugged at her sheepishly, "I guess I could at least clean up before I go."

"Your clothes are all washed," Emily continued, "Let me get you a fresh towel and you can take a shower, and then I'll change your dressing."

Jarod nodded in agreement, then leaned down to pick up the coffee mug, "But first a few sips of this.  It smells great."  He took a sip and smiled again at her, "Some kind of nut?"

"It's Kona macadamia nut flavored coffee from Hawaii.  My brother is stationed there at Hickam Air Force base," she explained and began leading the way back to the master bathroom.

Jarod followed still sipping the hot coffee, "I feel a lot better today.  I don't know how to thank you for all your help.  I'm sure I would be feeling a lot worse by now if you hadn't helped me."

Emily shrugged as she turned to look at him, "What are friends for?"  Reaching into the linen closet she grabbed a large blue towel and handed it to him, "Here, use all the hot water you want.  I'm going to feed the kids breakfast while you wash up.  Call me when you want me to put on the new bandages, okay?"

Jarod nodded gratefully as she walked back to the kitchen with the kids.  After using the toilet, he adjusted the water and stepped into the hot shower.  At first he just stood there letting it pound on his neck musing on the small piece of sweet family life he had just gotten to experience.  'I have to find my family soon,' he thought to himself, 'We've missed out on so many lovely, everyday moments already.'  But as the water seeped through the gauze bandage, his wounds began to sting, so he decided to get on with using the soap.  It felt good to wash his hair although it was hard to use his right hand and he preferred to hold it folded to his chest to keep from pulling the stitches too much.  He turned sideways in the shower to wash his face, keeping his shoulder out of the water now as it was really starting to smart.  He felt the stubble of his beard and realized he needed to ask for a razor when she came back.

Emily poured a bowl of cereal for Kimie and sat down with her while she nursed the baby.  She was relieved to see Jarod was feeling and looking so much better.  The color of his skin wasn't so pale and his eyes were so much clearer.  Something about the way his dark brown eyes sparkled when he grinned reminded her of her brother.  She wouldn't have thought of it except she had just mentioned him for having sent the coffee.  Suddenly, she sat straight up in the chair and interrupted the baby's contented nursing.  Unceremoniously, she set the child on the floor and dashed to the bookshelf in the living room.  Quickly she fluttered her fingers along the books along the bottom shelf where a number of photo albums were shelved.  Pulling out an old brown leather album she rushed back to the table and plopped it open as she flipped through the pages.  It was an album she had helped her mother organize just before Kim was born when she was really interested in the family tree.  There was a picture of a family reunion that she wanted to find, and then the book fell open to it.  She leaned over scrutinizing all the faces.  It was from June of 1950, when the family had gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her great-grandparents.  The elderly couple was seated in the center then each of their four children and spouses were standing in the first row behind them.  Clustered in groups behind were each of their children.  Her mother stood to the left next to her older sister, but instead of marveling at how young her mother looked like she usually did, she focused on one of her mother's uncles.  Emily's mouth fell open in amazement.  The tall man had dark hair and a thick dark mustache, but the resemblance to Jarod was remarkable.  She wondered that she hadn't made the connection before.  She was so excited she thought about interrupting his shower to show the picture to him.  But then she remembered how sad he had been telling about being taken from his family.  She didn't want to get his hopes up with the idea that he may have accidentally found part of his family.  The resemblance could be just coincidence.  Emily studied the picture again and grinned rather wickedly, then she closed the book and set it on the buffet along the wall.  She was going to get her mother back for having been so mysterious the night before.  Why couldn't she talk over the phone?  She loved the idea of beating her mother to the punch.  She couldn't wait for her mother to arrive and meet Jarod, but first she had to give him a little shave.  Emily scooped up the baby as he began to fuss and nursed him again anxious for Jarod to finish his shower.

Jarod toweled off and put on his freshly laundered pants.  He pulled off the bandage on the front of his shoulder and leaned closer to the mirror to study the wound.  He nodded appreciatively at the neat stitches that she had put in.  The area was still inflamed and discolored from bruising, but it showed signs of healing on the edges.  So long as he could keep it clean and uninfected it should heal without too much scaring.  He took another big swallow of coffee since it had cooled off by now and decided to get Emily to help him re-bandage the wound.  Walking back to the dining room, she was just finishing feeding the kids breakfast.  She looked at him with a funny expression at first but she quickly covered up by bustling around, serving him some cereal too and excusing herself to the children's rooms to change their diapers and clothes.  He contented himself with more coffee and the simple breakfast and decided she must be nervous about her mother coming to visit.

Leaving the kids in Kimie's bedroom playing with toys, and returning to the dining room, Emily patted Jarod's bare back and said, "Okay, your turn.  Let me get this old bandage off first."  She carefully pulled the tapes off his back and leaned down to look at the wound.

Her hands were warm and gentle and Jarod closed his eyes as he felt her brush his shoulder and arm.  It was a mother's touch, soothing and relaxing.  He felt her breath on his cheek as she leaned over to examine the front of his shoulder as well.  Opening his eyes, he turned his head and stared at her blue eyes just inches away.  A spark of electricity seemed to jump between them, and Emily jumped back in embarrassment.  'Whoa!' she thought, 'If I'm not careful, I could find myself attracted to this guy.'  She took a breath and put on her best doctor persona from her medical school days.  "It looks like it will heal nicely," she said aloud, "You should take some more antibiotics too.  Just sit there and I will be right back."

Jarod sat pondering what had just happened.  The connection he had felt between them was less interesting to him than her reaction to it.  It was like a veil had been pulled over her and she had become another person.  Almost the way he did when he did a pretend for a simulation.  The combination of the strong coffee, food and rest had finally cleared his head of the fever induced fog he'd been in for the last two days.  He remembered his first impression of the young mother when he had met her in the supermarket.  Her red hair had reminded him of his mother and her name was the same as his sister.  Could she be his sister with latent pretender abilities herself?  If so, he needed to find out for sure and protect her from discovery by the Centre.

Emily set down a bunch first aid supplies on the table interrupting his thoughts and he scrutinized her with an intense look.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable with his stare, Emily questioned, "What?"

Jarod decided to take a round about tack and softened his look as he asked, "Did you always want to be a doctor?"

She laughed lightly and picked up a gauze pad and the bottle of Betadine to wash his stitches.  "Hardly.  My mother always complained that I could never make up my mind.  I'd get really interested in a topic like insects or rocks or dinosaurs and read everything I could lay my hands on.  Then something else would be more interesting and I'd go off in another direction."  She worked deftly while she talked, using the conversation to distract him from the stinging wound.  "Even in college I had a hard time declaring a major.  I had a boyfriend who got me to try out for a college play my sophomore year.  He didn't make it on the cast, but I did.  I did six plays which were really fun and everyone said I was great.  There was about six months when I was determined to make it in Hollywood," she laughed again.  "Luckily, I came to my senses and went to medical school.  I switched to the MD/PhD program when I found I really enjoyed research.  There's a kind of thrill at figuring out the puzzle, especially when it's totally new.  You know that no one has ever done an experiment before just like yours.  It's like being an explorer, you know?"

Jarod nodded at her.  He did know that feeling.  He hated to admit it sometimes but he missed the challenge, yes, even the thrill of solving some of the sims he had done for the Centre.  He reached out his left hand and gripped her hand lightly, stopping her from applying antibiotic ointment with a Q-tip.  She looked at him questioningly.  "It sounds like you have natural pretender abilities like me," he observed quietly.

Emily shook her head, "Those home movies of yours showed that you have a mental ability that far exceeds the normal.  I'll admit to being smart, but I'm no genius."

"Your varied interests and acting abilities say otherwise," he reminded her.

"Well, now I'm a plain old stay-at-home Mom and I'm going to keep it that way," she countered.  "Here, hold this pad in place," and she moved her hand away from his to pick up a gauze pad and pressed it gently to his shoulder.  He obeyed, holding the pad with his left hand, while she cut and placed tape to hold it on his shoulder.  Then she began to repeat the process of cleaning and bandaging the smaller wound on the back of his shoulder.  "It was lucky the bullet went right through and didn't lodge in your shoulder, another quarter inch and it would have broken your shoulder bone too," she told him.

Jarod sighed heavily as the scene replayed in his mind.  He knew Miss Parker had shot him by accident but he still resented the fact that she had her gun drawn at all.  There had been so many times when he thought he had gotten through to her how misguided her loyalties to her father and the Centre were.  Especially last year after Thomas's death, he thought she would finally leave the Centre too.  But she seemed all the more determined to remain there and exact some kind of revenge for his death.  Then last fall when Mr. Fenegor blamed his own father for her mother's death, she had strengthened the icy barrier between them that had started to thaw.  Now she wanted to get revenge for her death as well.  Well, he had to quite simply find his father first, if he was still alive.  Jarod had found an old memo in the Centre's archives sent by Mr. Raines, no less, that implied that an obstacle to complete complete authority over the Pretender project had been neutralized.  He knew Centre-speak well enough to understand that this meant someone had been killed to silence them.  He feared it was his own father.  He sighed again.  He might never get to know his real father, but he knew his surrogate father very well.  He should call Sydney and let him know he was alright.  He knew Sydney would be worried about him and it wasn't fair to let him fret.  Jarod had long since forgiven Sydney realizing that they were both pawns in the Centre's game.  If it hadn't been for Sydney, his childhood could have been a real hell under Mr. Raines like the one that his murdered brother Kyle had endured.  Once again Jarod sighed.

"I'm sorry.  I'll try to be more gentle.  I'm almost finished here," Emily said misunderstanding all his sighs.

"No, no, it's not you," answered Jarod.  "I'm thinking about all my family.  I, ah, need to ask you something, um…" he floundered unsure whether to ask her straight out if she could be his sister.  "Do you have a photograph of your mother?" he finally decided to ask.

"Sure, but, oh" Emily looked at her watch, "She'll be here any minute and you can see her in person."  She cut a last piece of tape and patted it gently on his back.  "Come in the master bathroom, I'll help you shave."

"Shave?" Jarod echoed.

"Yeah, we don't want my mother thinking I go around picking up scruffy homeless people all the time," Emily joked.

They peeked in at the kids to make sure they were still happily playing.  Kimie was stacking large cardboard blocks around some stuffed animals and baby Will was sitting in front of a toy bin tasting all sorts of plastic toys that had he pulled out.  As they walked to the back master bedroom and bath, Jarod was suddenly curious and asked, "Where's their father?"

"My husband, Eric, is on a business trip for two weeks.  He works for Exxon as a field exploration geologist.  Those first three days he was gone were the hardest, but now I'm in the rhythm of the day.  Well, until we brought you home," she smiled wryly at him.  "I'm afraid Eric would never have approved of caring for you.  He'd have been jealous and overprotective.  I'll tell him about you after you leave."

"I don't blame him a bit," Jarod replied feeling jealous himself of a man he'd never met and the wonderful family that he had.

Emily opened the cabinet under the sink and got out a can of shaving cream and pulled a new disposable razor from its package.  "From the clumsy way you used the spoon, I'm guessing you're right handed, right?"  Jarod nodded.  She folded the toilet seat lid down and gestured magnanimously, "Have a seat at my barbershop."  He sat and she applied the shaving cream to his cheeks, "Do you trust me?" she asked.

He gazed up at her frank, open face and pretty blue eyes, "Implicitly."

"Right, then, you keep the mustache."

Jarod shrugged.  He didn't really care.  He had worn his hair many different ways depending on the impression he wanted to make in a pretend.  If she had a preference, he was happy to oblige.

Emily quickly slid the razor around, gently tilting his head back and forth to get the angle just right.  She stepped back with a big smile, "Well, you clean up pretty nice.  Hmmm, how about a hair cut too?"

Jarod nodded mutely as she pulled a comb and a pair of scissors out of the vanity drawer.  He closed his eyes as she combed and lifted his hair with her hands, listening to the sound of the snipping.  The rhythmical sound and the gentle pulling was soothing and relaxing.  He didn't want to open them as he felt her step away.  He heard a snap as a plug went into the electrical outlet and felt the blast of hot hair from a blow dryer as she stepped back and styled his still damp hair.  He allowed himself to fall into a mild meditative state as he released his worries and existed only in the moment.  All too soon, she was done and he took a deep breath and stretched briefly before opening his eyes.  He looked up at her looking down at him with her mouth open in amazement.

Jarod stood up and looked in the mirror.  He looked quite handsome, although a little old fashioned.  His hair was parted down the middle and cut short over his ears, and the mustache curved down on either side of his mouth.  He smiled at himself and then over at Emily.  She had a mysterious smile on her own face in return as she stared at him.  It was his turn to ask quizzically, "What?"

"You need a shirt," she announced.  She turned around and walked to the laundry room where his duffel lay on the floor and all his clothes were folded in a stack on the laundry table.  She lifted a couple of black tee-shirts off the top of the stack, shaking her head, "It'll hurt your shoulder too much to get into these."  She pulled a simple white button-down dress shirt out of the middle.  "It's not ironed, but it will be the easiest to put on."  Holding it open for him, she helped him pull the shirt on trying to avoid straining his shoulder.  He tried to button two of the buttons, but she stepped up and finished the rest and even tucked his shirt in like she was dressing one of her children.

For his part, Jarod stood there feeling like a small child himself, still mildly hypnotized by all the ministrations she had applied to him to transform him from a fugitive to a respectable person.  "I should leave and …" he started to say when the door bell rang.

Emily grinned, "Too late.  You can't leave that easily.  Come on.  I want you to meet my mom."

As they walked toward the living room, a small blur raced passed them and flung open the door to the morning sunshine, "Nanna!" Kimie cried joyfully as she threw herself in an older woman's arms.  The woman leaned over to hug and scoop up the little girl, her graying red hair falling down around her face.  As she stood up, Jarod stared at her not even realizing he was holding his breath.

As she made eye contact with Jarod, the woman gasped, "You look just like him!"

Jarod was flabbergasted.  Having never grown up in an extended family, he had never looked like anyone.  He was stunned to have the line, usually given to Miss Parker because of the resemblance she had to her mother, used to describe him.  "Who?" he managed to choke out.

She stepped into the room with the little girl in her arms and reached out a hand to shake his hand.  "You look just like my Uncle Theron, of course, back when he was younger."

Jarod could only stare at her as his heart dropped in heavy disappointment.  She wasn't his mother.  She had a mild resemblance, but she wasn't his mother.  His disappointment was so bitter.  He didn't realize he had even let his hopes get so high.  He didn't even register her words.

Emily stepped between them as Jarod failed to take her mother's offered hand.  "Mother, this is Jarod.  Jarod, this is my mother, Mary Fisher."

Jarod struggled to compose himself as he took a ragged breath trying not to cry and shook Mary's hand.

Emily touched his arm getting his attention.  His crestfallen face was heartbreaking to see.  "I'm sorry.  I should have shown you this right away.  I wanted it to be a surprise."  He looked at her in expectation as she pulled him gently out of the room.  "Mom, come see this too."  The older woman set down her grand-daughter and followed.

Emily led the way to the dining room where the innocent looking photo album lay on the buffet.  Quickly she flipped it open to the family reunion picture from nearly fifty years ago.  "Sit down," she said to Jarod pulling a chair out for him, "Doctor's orders."

He sat down numbly and stared at the picture she pushed in front of him, her finger pointing to a man with his hair parted down the middle, short above the ears and a mustache dropping down on either side of his mouth.  "Who?  What?  When?" he mumbled in amazement.  He looked up at Emily for an explanation.

"I remembered this photo this morning while you were in the shower, but I wasn't sure if the resemblance was real until after I cut your hair," she began.  "This photo was taken in 1950 at my great-grandparents 50th wedding anniversary," she pointed to the people as she spoke.  "These are their four children and their spouses.  This is my grandma and grandpa and this is my mother and her…"

But she didn't finish as he gasped in astonishment, "My mother!"  He looked up at the two women smiling down at him.

The older woman leaned down and gave him a hug, "I'm your Aunt Mary," she announced.

"I guess that makes us cousins," Emily grinned at him.  "Welcome to the family."

"But why do I look like him?" asked Jarod, pointing to the man who could have been his twin.

"He's your other grandfather," Mary said reluctantly.

"Other grandfather?" Jarod repeated.

Her finger pointed to a young man standing behind his grandfather wearing an Air Force uniform.  "This is your Dad."

"Major Charles," he breathed eagerly bending to look closer at the photo.

"Actually, he was a Captain then.  This is going to be a long story.  Emily, dear, would you bring us all some coffee.  I've been driving since 6AM this morning.  I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you last night when you called, but I promised that I would never talk about Jarod on the phone."

"Promised who?" demanded Jarod.

"Your father, of course," Mary replied.

"Then he is still alive?" Jarod asked his voice full of hope.

"Yes, and he's worried about you.  He's been searching for you and your mother for years.  I thought he and my sister had died in a plane crash years ago, but he contacted me about two years ago.  He said something had happened to you the year before and that you might try to contact me.  It was most frustrating as he didn't explain much.  Just made me promise never to talk about his family over the phone or on the internet and then asked that if my sister Margaret or if you, Jarod, should ever contact me to let him know."

"Mother!  You never told me," exclaimed Emily in exasperation as she returned to the room with the coffee pot in one hand and the fingers of the other hand looped through the handles of three coffee cups.

"You were busy with Kim and pregnant with Will and so happy in your own life that I didn't want to burden you with sad family memories," Mary explained to her daughter.

"Wait, wait," exclaimed Jarod in turn, "You can contact him?"

"After a fashion.  I post a personal ad in the Chicago Sun Times and he'll get back with me when he can," she replied.

Jarod's mind was whirling as he sorted out all the new information.  "If you and my mother, Margaret, are sisters," he started.  Mary nodded at him to continue.  "Then this picture of the generations of your family suggests that Charles was your cousin."  She nodded again.  "But cousins aren't allowed to marry," he protested.

Mary took a sip of her coffee and looked straight in his dark brown eyes, trying to get a feel for his character and strength and whether he could handle the information she was about to tell him, "As I said, it's a long story…"

To Be Continued…I plan to get back to Parker again soon, I promise.  The characters just seem to be taking me on a little ride down memory lane…


	11. Ballad of Charles and Margaret

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Eleven:  The Ballad of Margaret and Charles

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Thanks for all the encouragement reviewers.  I'm sorry it's been a while.  I've had a series of busy weekends with grades due, girl scout campouts and end of soccer season games and parties for my kids.  In addition, I went off on a tangent on my writing that I had to reign in, I think I have another story (she says mysteriously) but I'm determined to finish this one first.  I know the ending it just hasn't flowed off my fingertips yet but it will.  I Promise!

Houston, Texas, Friday Morning

Mary smiled at Jarod's expectant face, "I see so much of your father in you.  You have his eyes."

"Tell me about him," pressed Jarod eagerly.

"Actually, one of my first memories is of Charles.  I remember he saved my sister and me from a bully when I first went to school.  It was that September when the Japanese finally surrendered and WWII ended.  Margaret is seven years older than I am, so I always looked up to her and couldn't wait to go to school like she did and not stay home with Mother like some baby.  But that whole first week of school I was completely miserable."  She paused seeing his puzzled expression, "We still lived primarily on farms.  Most of the older kids stayed home to help with harvesting, but the younger children went to school.  Well, a new family had moved into town and they had a girl one year older than me and a big boy who was probably fifteen.  Their father had died in the war and their mother had gotten a job at the bank.  I guess they had been well off before, but now they didn't have much money anymore.  That girl tormented me from the very first day.  We were both new to the school, but she couldn't stand it that the other kids already knew who I was from my sister.  That day she took my lunch and when one of the other kids protested, her big brother took his too."

"Mom, I never heard this story before," Emily interrupted.

Mary shrugged, "I guess it's not an especially good memory to recall.  Anyway, my mother noticed that I was eating unusually large amounts at dinner, but I was too frightened to tell her what was happening.  Mother decided to send a Margaret to school the next week.  She said that they had done all the canning, but they hadn't.  She was worried about me.  Well, that girl, Nellie, tried to take my lunch again, but Margaret wouldn't let her.  I was so happy that I had my big sister there, until Nellie ran to get her big brother, Jim.  I guess if I was 6, then Margaret must have been 13, hardly a match for a 15 year old boy.  Well, she was brave and tried to stand up to him, but with one shove he pushed her down so that she fell backwards over the wooden benches and then he took both our lunches!"

Jarod looked worried and angry about an incident that had happened over fifty years ago, "Was she all right?"

"Why didn't the teacher do anything?" asked Emily.

"She was fine," Mary reassured Jarod and then turned to her own daughter, "Oh, he was this milk-toast, thin man who was barely maintaining order in the one room classroom as it was.  He knew if he was openly opposed by any of the really big boys that he would never be able to keep them in line, so he pretended not to notice."

"That's awful!" exclaimed Emily again, "What did your parents do when they found out?"

"Well, that afternoon, my sister and I told my mother about these two mean kids.  At dinner, my mother tried to get my father to get involved, but he wouldn't.  He was a very old-fashioned thinker even for those days.  He said we had to learn to stand on our own two feet, and that he couldn't protect us all our lives.  I was so disappointed that I cried myself to sleep that night.  All my expectations of how great school was going to be were ruined as far as I could tell."

"So how did my father save you?" asked Jarod.

She nodded, "Right, well, the two of them took our lunches all week.  Margaret tried to hide our food in her pockets on Wednesday but Jim saw us sneaking bites and shook her until she gave him the cookies.  Some of the other older kids started coming back to school but none of them would stand up to Big Jim.  Finally, the next week Monday, cousin Charles came to school.  He was only thirteen too, but he was strong from having worked on his family's farm all summer.  Jim didn't know he was our cousin of course, so he came over to all three of us at lunch and told Charles that he should sit somewhere else or pay the consequences.  Charles said he figured this was a free country and that he could sit where ever he wanted.  I didn't want any one to get hurt so I held out my lunch sack.  Charles asked, what are you doing Mary?  I answered, he goes away when we give him our lunch.  Charles looked up at that Big Jim and called him a lying, cheating Nazi.  Those were fighting words back then.  The two of them started shoving and punching each other, knocking all the furniture over, and all the rest of the kids started cheering for Charles."

"Wow," breathed Jarod, "so he beat up Big Jim?"

"No, actually, Charles got knocked out cold.  But not before he gave Jim a black eye and a few other bruises," Mary said shaking her head with the memory.

"But I thought you said that my father saved you from a bully," protested Jarod.

"Wait, I'm not finished yet," Mary replied holding her hands up, seeming to pat the air in front of her.  "Of course, the teacher couldn't ignore the fight and sent some kids for the doctor to come check on Charles' and Jim's injuries.  Then the school board had to call a hearing to hear the circumstances and decide whether the two of them should be suspended or expelled.  I had to tell what happened too.  All these stern looking parents were sitting in chairs across the front of the classroom that night.  I was so scared when I had to answer their questions.  I explained that Jim had been taking our lunches.  He half lied and said he never ate my lunch.  Which was true, since his sister had always eaten my lunch.  Then Jim said he had to fight because Charles had called him a Nazi.  Of course, Charles admitted that he had and that I had willingly held out my lunch to Jim.  Then the teacher said that there had been no trouble until Charles had come to school, because, of course, he had ignored everything.  He was more scared of Big Jim than of Charles and I think he didn't want the parents to know he wasn't in control of the school.  So Charles was suspended for a week and Jim only got a warning."

"What?!  That's not fair!" exclaimed Emily.

"Did they stop taking your food?" asked Jarod.

"They didn't bother us for two days, but when things seemed to be calm again Nellie came up to me and said that I had to give her my lunch or she would get me suspended too.  I was frightened so I did.  That afternoon cousin Charles came to visit with a plan.  He said we had to prove that our lunches were being taken by putting something in the food that would make them sick.  Margaret was horrified that we would poison anybody.  He was quick to grab her hand and look her right in the face.  'We wouldn't really hurt them, just scare them enough to confess,' he reassured her.  He held out a bottle of ipecac syrup that he had found in his family's medicine chest.  He said, 'We just put some of this in the food and they'll be throwing up all over the place.'  I remember he had the most devious grin."

Jarod grinned back at her as he understood what had happened.  He had used people's own greed against them when he set people up to punish them for hurting others.  That must be where he had gotten his own sense of justice, from his father.

"That's the grin!" Mary smiled back at Jarod.  "So Margaret made the most delicious batch of chocolate pudding that afternoon and we had a great snack as we made our plans.  The next day Charles went to see Doc Anderson and tell him what was going to happen.  We had to have at least one grown up on our side and we knew if they got sick that the doctor would be called in.  Sure enough, they took our lunches and ate up all the pudding in the little glass jars my sister had packed it in.  That afternoon, the Doc brought one of the members of the school board with him to make a spot check of the school.  The teacher was doing geography with the two big girls who would obey him at the front of the class, while the rest of us were working quietly.  But Big Jim and some of the other big boys were sitting and whittling on the back row and not having their lesson up front since they knew the teacher couldn't make them do it.  He was really surprised and embarrassed when the two men came in unexpectedly and found him not doing his job properly.  It was about an hour after lunch, so Nellie was looking a little green around the edges, and she called to the doctor to please check her as she felt sick.  The doctor felt her forehead for a fever and told her it was probably something she ate.  Of course, he knew what was going on since Charles had told him about our trap, so he didn't give her much sympathy.  Then Margaret, that big ham, asked Doc to come look at her botany project that she had brought in that day to school.  The teacher encouraged her thinking it would reflect well on him.  So Margaret showed the poster board we had all helped make the afternoon before and when she got to the poisonous pyracantha berries she looked right at Big Jim with an arched eyebrow.  You know she was a great actress, always had the biggest part in the school pageants.  Almost as good as my Emily," she paused to pat her daughter's hand.  "Anyway, the way she looked implied that we had poisoned the food.  He was starting to feel nauseas too and he went crazy yelling that she had poisoned him and his sister and that she had to be expelled from school too.  Then Nellie started throwing up right on top of her desk.  Oh, it was complete pandemonium!"

"I can imagine," chuckled Jarod as closed his eyes briefly to sim the scene in his mind.

"So what happened next?" Emily asked leaning forward eagerly.

"Jim and Nellie confessed that they had taken other kid's lunches because they weren't getting enough to eat at home.  He got expelled from school and took a job at the lumber yard, so Nellie got more to eat and stopped being so mean.  Without him there, and after some scolding by their parents I'm sure, the other big boys obeyed the teacher.  Charles came back to school and let Margaret take all the credit for outsmarting the bully, although I know he was the one to save us from those bullies.  I think his disgust for bullies is one of the reasons why he joined the Air Force."

Jarod felt that same disgust.  When he had escaped the Centre he had hoped to find good and caring people.  He had been dismayed at how many people could be selfish and cruel to others.  He found helping people to overcome those bullies alleviated his own guilt for the hurt people had suffered because of what he had thought up for the Centre all those years.  Now he found himself wondering if he would have helped people anyway.  He wanted to think he would, just like his father.  He picked up the photo album and studied the picture of his father as a young man.  He had dark hair, a round honest face, a little stockier build than his own but a definite resemblance.  "How old is he here?" Jarod asked curiously.

Mary looked down at the photo too, "He is just a few months older than my sister, so eighteen.  That was taken at the beginning of June, and he joined up to fight in the Korean War that started at the end of June.  I remember he left right after the Fourth of July celebrations.  Margaret must have cried for a week."

"Was she worried that he would get killed?" asked Emily.

"Yes, but it was more than worry.  She cried like he already was dead.  Now that I look back, I see that she was already in love with him.  The family had separated them and sent him away to keep them apart.  Of course, at the time, I was only twelve and they deliberately left me out of the loop in what was going on, but I've figured it out over the years and I talked to her about it once."

"What happened?" asked Jarod and Emily simultaneously, ready to hear another story.

"Growing up they were always good friends.  I guess they just thought alike.  They were both pretty smart in school and liked to make things.  Charles was a great carpenter and was really fascinated by machines and especially airplanes.  Margaret was a great cook and seamstress.

As I mentioned, she was a terrific actress and she had just finished a school play at the end of January.  The boy who played the other leading role was smitten with her and invited her to the Valentine's Day dance.  I remember how lovely she looked coming down the stairs when he rang the doorbell to pick her up.  Her red hair was shining in soft waves framing her face and the color was set off perfectly by the turquoise green dress she had made herself.  So many girls would be wearing pink or red, but only Margaret would be wearing green on Valentine's Day.

I didn't get to go of course, but people talked about what happened afterwards.  Margaret danced with a number of young men, even with Charles a few times.  Her date seemed to think he had sole rights to her and started telling the other boys to leave her alone.  Even though it was a cold February night, he talked her into stepping outside to talk.  Apparently, her date got fresh with her, then Charles came to her rescue and decked the guy.  She ran away crying and Charles went after her, while her date went back inside with a black eye and sat brooding in the corner.

You have to remember that we didn't have weather satellites back then and that weather forecasting was still in its primitive stages.  The weather report was more like an after-the-fact report.  So that night a blizzard came roaring down from the North and they can come sweeping in very fast without any warning.  So everyone was stuck at the dance hall until the storm broke.  It wasn't until after midnight when the chaperones were trying to get everyone to settle down and find a piece of floor to sleep on that they realized that Charles and Margaret were gone.

He had chased after her and tried to talk her in to going back to the dance, but she felt too humiliated and showed him where the other guy had torn the front of her dress.  We only lived a mile out of town and she declared that she was just going to walk home.  It was freezing and she had on her coat, but Charles only had his jacket and not his great coat.  Nevertheless, he wouldn't let her go by herself and was afraid to leave her alone to go back for his coat.  So they started off at a brisk walk and were halfway home when the blizzard hit.  They clung to each other and tried to follow the road, but all the swirling snow disoriented them and they stumbled down a side road that led to the skating pond without realizing it.  They only figured it out when Margaret walked right into one of the benches that surrounded the pond that people used to put on their skates or rest.  Charles walked waving his hands back and forth in front of him trying to find the next bench along the bank and they used the row of benches to help them find the hut where food was sold on the weekends.  He kicked open the door and they burst into the small shelter with the swirling snow.  It took the two of them to close it back against the wind and then he pushed a heavy box up against the door to hold it closed."

"It was lucky they found shelter," observed Emily in doctor mode, "hypothermia would have killed them if they had remained out in the storm all night."

"It still might have if Charles hadn't taken such good care of the both of them.  He found an old oil cloth that was used to wrap around some engine parts for boats in the summer.  It was dirty, but it was dry.  So he made Margaret take off her coat, shoes and wet stockings and wrapped her up in it.  Then he rubbed her feet until they were red and tingly to make sure she wouldn't get frostbite.  Then she insisted on rubbing his feet as well so he wouldn't have frostbitten feet either.

When he had feeling in his feet again, he rummaged around the back counter and wall again and found a wooden crate with skates to rent in it and then with great, good luck, a pack of matches on the floor under it.  He broke up the wooden crate, then taking the large, flat top off of a motor casing he used it as a firepan.  They were able to make a small fire to warm their hands and feet and dry out their hair.  Margaret said it didn't really warm them that much but the flickering light of the flames seemed to be battling the storm back from them and cheered them up a lot.  She said they sat with his arm around her, cuddled together for warmth under the old oil cloth talking about all their hopes and dreams for the future.  Sometime in the middle of the night they fell asleep.

They woke up late in the morning.  The storm was still howling and it was a dark gray outside the dusty window set in the door.  The fire had gone out and it was bitter cold inside the hut.  Emily shifted around to get comfortable and found herself looking right in Charles' dark brown eyes.  She said it felt like electricity ran through the two of them and ever so slowly he leaned forward and kissed her softly, then deeper and deeper.  When they came up for breath, she knew she was in love and that he was the only one for her.  But in the same breath, she knew that their love could never be, since they were cousins and their families would never approve.

So the storm finally ended late that night and the next morning they were found.  They were cold and hungry, but not much worse physically.  All that spring they teased each other mercilessly.  I remember being surprised at some of the practical jokes they pulled on each other.  She called him Fly Boy and he called her Red.  They wouldn't allow themselves to be in love, so they tormented each other instead."  Mary paused after her long recital and took a long sip of coffee.

"Finally, that June it all fell apart.  The tension between them had grown so much that it was finally noticed when they were dancing together at anniversary party.  They thought they could sneak out unnoticed, but both our father and Charles' father caught them kissing passionately in the kitchen pantry."

She nodded sadly at the photo again.  "That was taken that very afternoon before the dinner party.  Afterwards, Charles was sent off to enlist in the military.  Naturally, he chose the Air Force.  Then she was sent to a Catholic boarding school in August.  I really missed her.  Our family was never the same after that," she said sadly.

Jarod stared down at the photo again, this time at his mother.  She looked so young and carefree.  She stood behind her parents so that only her face shown clearly, just as Charles had stood behind his in the carefully arranged professional photo.  But they were edged closer together than the other sets of children.  Jarod squinted at the angles of the arms that could barely be seen.  They had to have been holding hands.  He smiled to himself.  "When did they marry?" he asked.

"Three years later after the war ended," she replied.  "Actually, I think that separating them is what pulled them closer together.  They wrote to each other every week.  He was in Korea constantly facing death and thinking about what really mattered to him in his life.  She was in Massachusetts, enrolled as a novice at a Catholic boarding school.  My father was determined to make her a nun, because he was so ashamed of her behavior.  It only served to make her focused on what she wanted which was to be with Charles and have a family.

When he got back in 1953 after the end of the war, he came to visit her right away.  She left the convent that afternoon and they were married the next day by a justice of the peace.  They tried to come visit, but my father refused to let my mother take me to see them.  Father met them over at Charles' families house.  His family talked to them, but still wouldn't give their approval to their marriage.  My father disowned her, of course."

"Disowned?" Jarod didn't understand the concept.

"He refused to even acknowledge her as his daughter, partly because she disobeyed him, partly because he was embarrassed, and partly because they were cousins.  They were both ignored by the family after that and no one could talk or write, let alone go visit them."

"But why would they no longer be part of the family?"

"It's a major religious and social taboo.  The family had a standing in the community as church leaders and it would embarrass them to condone their marriage.  Margaret argued and gave examples of all sorts of famous people who had married cousins, like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  But father wouldn't hold with what European royalty or American high society accepted in order to keep their bloodlines "pure".  He was quite opposed to caste system rules and special privileges.  He didn't want his family looking anything like that, so he just pretended that she never even existed after they married," Mary explained sadly.

Jarod stared off in the distance.  He knew that feeling of wanting to be with someone who was forbidden.  In many ways his own relationship with Miss Parker was like the one his parents had together.  They had also been best friends as kids, having adventures and being brave together.  Saving each other's lives and parting, only to realize that their lives would never really be complete without the other.  Their parents who disapproved and kept them apart, were a much tamer version of Mr. Parker and the Centre who kept Miss Parker from him.  Somehow, his parents had found the courage to be together in spite of all the obstacles.  But had they really found happiness?  He didn't want to follow their example if all it did was lead to ruin in the end.  He looked over at his aunt.  A woman he had just met, but who had given him the best present anyone ever had in his whole life by giving him stories of his own family.  "Were they ever truly happy?" he asked his voice cracking slightly in fear of her answer.

"Oh, yes, when you were born she told me it made her joy complete," Mary said kindly.  "It was tough at first without a family to help them get started.  Charles stayed in the military and was often away, so Margaret lived with a young woman she had met at the convent.  Her friend hadn't become a nun either, so they had a lot in common.  They got secretarial jobs together at a large corporation that was headquartered near this other woman's home.  Finally, Charles got posted to a nice, office job in the Pentagon and they moved to Washington D.C.  Although she was happy to have her husband home all the time, Margaret was frustrated at not having a family.  She had had a couple of miscarriages and happened to see her old friend who helped them get into a fertility clinic in Atlanta, Georgia.  They actually moved there for a while until the clinic helped them have you," she said rather proudly thinking he would be happy to hear about how he was born.  Instead she was startled to see the dark, brooding look in his eyes as he stared at her almost in horror.

"What was the woman's name," he demanded tersely.

"I don't remember," Mary answered slowly.

"Where was this corporation?  What was it's name?" he grilled her.

"I don't think she ever said," she replied getting a little frightened of him.  Fortunately, the tense moment was broken by the cry of baby Will in the next room.  The children had been playing happily, temporarily forgotten by the adults as they had talked.  Emily started to get up, but her mother didn't want to be left alone with Jarod just now.  "Let me.  I haven't seen my grandson yet.  I'll let you two talk a bit," Mary said pushing away from the table quickly and stepping into the other room.

"I don't believe it," he said darkly.

"What?" asked Emily.

"She could never have worked for them!  That place is evil.  My mother would never have been a party to that.  She couldn't," he protested like a child.  Jarod had fallen deeply into the stories of his parents which had fleshed them out as people more than any of his imaginings over the years ever had.  But the one constant he had always had in his mind as he had tried to imagine his family over the years was that they were good.  They were good, and honest, and they loved him, and they did the total opposite of everything the Centre did.  His whole fantasy life fell crumbling around him to think that his mother had ever worked for them, willingly.  He felt betrayed somehow.

"Where do you think your mother worked?" Emily asked calmly.

Jarod looked at her with his dark eyes full of anguish, "The Centre."

Emily swallowed and tried to dissuade him, but she knew he was right, "My mom didn't even know the name of the place.  You don't know for sure."

"No, it makes sense.  It fits all the other pieces that I know.  My parents were friends with Catherine Parker.  She had gone to a convent called St. Catherine of the Hills, but never took her vows.  She married Mr. Parker who runs the Centre.  And I know she helped them get into the Nugenesis fertility clinic in Atlanta.  I always thought it was her kindness that got them priority at the clinic, but what if the Centre was helping her help them because they knew my mother had the pretender gene…" Jarod trailed off and stared off out the window.

"There's a pretender gene?" asked Emily.  "I know a bit about genetics," she said modestly, "and I realize they've barely made a dent in sequencing the human genome, but I follow that progress in my science journals and there is no such thing," she concluded firmly.

Jarod didn't actually hear her as he as his incredibly brilliant mind fit all the facts together and filled in the gaps with plausible pieces.  "It all makes sense.  My parents had difficulty having a child because they were cousins.  She had miscarriages because the close genetics increases the chances of getting two copies of bad genes and causing incorrect development.  But it also increases the chances of getting two copies of super active, good genes.  The Centre probably tested my mother's blood as part of a health check up.  They couldn't really train an adult for their use, so they kept an eye on her in the hopes that she would have a child that would inherit the trait.  Imagine their excitement when they found out she was actually married to her own cousin."

"Well, I still don't think there's a genius gene or there would be a whole lot more people out there just like you," protested Emily.

"You're right, actually it's a gene cluster.  But they do have a couple of genetic markers.  I've seen the research.  I've used a gene probe to identify and rescue a boy who they planned to kidnap and develop in my place," Jarod finally focused back on Emily.  "In fact, I think you may have some of the pretender genes too.  We should test your blood against mine.  You need to know just so you can protect yourself, and your family.  There's a good chance your children have it too.  If the Centre found out, they would have no qualms about kidnapping your children," he warned her.

Mary walked back in the room just at the end of his sentence to hear his low voice seem to threaten her daughter with kidnapping her children.  Her daughter's terrified face did little to reassure her, and she was suddenly doubting her initial impression of this man.  Who was he really?  He looked like family, but she knew very well that he hadn't been raised by family.  How much of our selves is from our genetics and how much from our nurturing?  The instincts of a mother to protect her young surged through Mary and she crossed the room quickly and slapped him across the face.  "Don't you dare suggest such a thing!  Don't you know how much anguish your mother went through when you and your brother were taken from her?" Mary exclaimed angrily.

"MOTHER!" Emily sprang to Jarod's defense.

Jarod stared at the older woman, his cheek stinging, he shook his head slowly as his eyes filled with tears, "No, I don't know," he answered her question literally.  "You've told me more in the last hour than I've ever known.  I've been searching for my family ever since I escaped from the Centre.  I saw my mother once, but they came before I could talk to her and I had to run to get away."

Instantly, Mary regretted her actions when she saw the depth of his pain in his eyes.  She sat down again and took his hands in hers and apologized softly, "I'm sorry.  I only saw her once more myself.  I know how you feel.  

Jarod nodded realizing she was just protecting her family, "I forgive you.  Tell me about when you saw her, please."

"After my father died in 1959, I searched for her to tell her and to try to reconnect with her again.  They were living in Georgia then, close to the fertility clinic.  She couldn't travel because she was pregnant with you and didn't want to endanger her pregnancy.  We must have talked for three hours on the phone.  We wrote to each other, but we never saw each other because I was busy getting engaged and getting married to your father, Emily," Mary started, reaching out one hand to hold her daughter's hand as well.

"It wasn't until after you were born that I finally made the effort to go and visit.  They had moved again to a small town in Michigan.  We had the best weekend.  It was almost like no time had passed and we were girls playing dolls again except they were real babies, you two," she squeezed their hands and smiled.  "You were about three and could talk so well.  Oh, you were curious about everything!  She was so patient with all your 'Whys'.  She was pregnant with your brother and so happy with her family and simple life out in the country."

"How old was I, Mom?" asked Emily.

"You were six months old, and as cute as a button," replied Mary fondly.  

"Isn't there a photograph in my old baby book?" asked Emily.  "That's why I called you last night.  I vaguely remembered that."

"Yes," acknowledged Mary.  "I'm sorry I didn't think to bring that with me."

"I remembered you telling me about having an aunt and cousins but that they were gone.  We never saw them and you never talked about them.  I guess I always thought you meant that they had died."

Mary nodded sadly, "When we went on that weekend, I thought that the past was behind us and that we would see each other again and have family holidays and such.  But I never saw her again after you disappeared, Jarod.  It must have been about five months later.  She called me one afternoon incredibly upset.  The police had finally left and your father was still out of town on an assignment.  She was home alone after both you and your baby brother had been taken during the night.  Oh, her heart was broken.  I should have gone to comfort her, but money was so tight then.  Everything happened so fast.  She was accused of harming the two of you and covering it up, but there was no evidence to support that.  Your father was pushing people he knew in D.C. to help when suddenly he was court-martialed for passing secrets to the communist Koreans way back during the war.  There wasn't enough evidence to convict him, but he was dishonorably discharged.  Your mother was cleared as well, but everyone she knew was suspicious and unfriendly to her.  One day, they just left, disappeared themselves.  I never saw or talked to my sister again.  The last time I heard anything about them was about five years later, when their lawyer contacted me to say they had died in a plane crash and wanted me to sign some papers to settle their small estate so it would pay his bill.  The lawyer said it was a shame, they had finally found where you were and going to see you but never made it," she concluded sadly.

"But you said earlier you had talked to my father last year," Jarod reminded her.

"Yes, I was incredibly surprised.  Charles told me they faked their death to avoid being really hurt.  I can't imagine why.  He wouldn't tell me when I asked."

"I know why," Jarod said in a low voice.

Mary studied his face and the way he clenched his jaw, "I have a feeling you won't tell me either if I asked."

"Believe me, it's better if you don't know," he answered.

"Well, he wouldn't tell me much but was excited about some news of you that he had.  He thought you might contact me someday and if so wanted me to help you contact him.  He swore me to secrecy, Emily.  I'm sorry.  Besides I didn't want to scare you with stories of kidnappings in our family."

Emily smiled back, "I understand, Mom."

"So how do I contact him?" asked Jarod with excitement in his voice.

"I post a personal ad in the Sunday edition of the Chicago Sun Times and he'll get back to me," she explained.

"Let's do it now," exclaimed Jarod, "It's Friday already."

"Well, let me make a long distance phone call then," she replied standing up from the table.  "It is going to take several days of waiting," she warned looking at Jarod's eager face.

"I understand," he replied, "but this is the closest I've been to finding my family in years."

Mary went into the kitchen to make the phone call and Emily got up to check on her children.  Jarod was left alone at the table to reflect on the conversation of the past hour.  He had recognized so much of himself in his parents.  He always felt that he didn't know who he was, yet now he realized that he did have a personality of his own.  True he could adapt to fit any role for a pretend scenario, but he had a baseline to which to return to when it was over.  That basic personality was the one he had gotten from his parents.

Emily returned to the dining room table with the small boy fussing in her arms.  She settled herself down and the baby nursed hungrily.  She looked up to see Jarod watching her and the baby idly.

"How much do you think our personalities are shaped by our genetics?" he asked her.

"I don't know.  I think we inherit abilities or gifts that we can develop, like the ability to sing for instance.  But there is clear evidence that how you are nurtured as a baby affects you as well.  For instance, those orphan children in Romania who were just kept in cribs all day and never held, grew up to be autistic," she replied thoughtfully.  "Actually, that's the main reason why I'm staying home with my children.  My parenting books all say that your basic personality is developed by the age of four.  If my kids have any bad habits or quirks, I want them to be from me," she laughed.

Jarod cocked his head to the side and smiled, "I was raised by my parents until I was almost four when the Centre took me away from them."

"Then they would have had a big influence on you," she reassured him.

"I don't remember anything before the Centre," he sighed in frustration.  "I don't remember my parents at all.  Since I escaped I've been looking for them but they hide as well as I do."

"I'm sorry," Emily replied simply.

"It's just that I never considered the reason that they are able to hide so well may be because they have pretender abilities too.  Your mother said that my mom was a great actress.  If she has been able to stay out of the clutches of the Centre all these years, then she must be really good," Jarod said with pride.  "I've always been frustrated and angry with not finding my parents.  I never considered that it was a connection, a trait or ability that we shared.  And one that you and I share as well.  I'm serious about testing you.  We should test your kids too."

Emily looked thoughtful as she realized what he was saying.  "I still have some friends who do research in the Medical Center.  I could probably talk someone into sharing a their lab bench for a couple days.  I could call Evelyn.  She's sort of a mentor of mine.  She's an older woman who is the lab manager for one of the medical school professors.  He's never in the lab and she basically runs the place.  Actually, she's the one who encouraged me to stay home with my baby."

Jarod stared at her with a dawning suspicion.  It would be an incredible coincidence if it was true.  He was almost afraid to ask, "Evelyn?  Evelyn White?"

"Why, yes," answered Emily in surprise.  "How do you know her name?"

"She is one of the reasons I came to Houston in the first place.  I was trying to help her daughter find her and to reunite them," explained Jarod.

"Wow, what a small world!  But I'm surprised that you are helping someone.  I thought you are on the run from the Centre."

"I am, but that doesn't mean I want to lock myself away somewhere.  They had me locked up long enough.  I escaped so that I could help people," he answered logically.

She stared at him in surprise for a moment and then her face broke out in a wide, beautiful smile, "I like you even more.  I'm so glad you're my cousin."

He beamed back at her as a warm feeling of belonging filled his soul.  It wasn't quite the family he had been looking for, but it was a family connection none-the-less.

"As soon as mother gets off the phone, I'll make some calls myself.  She can stay here with the kids this afternoon during their nap time while you and I go to the medical center," Emily continued.

Mary walked back into the room announcing, "I placed the personal ad.  It will run this Sunday."  Emily got up and Mary took her place at the table, "So Jarod, any other questions?"

"Well, actually, one big one," he said with a slightly embarrassed grin,  "What's my name?"

"Jarod Russell Wright," she answered with a slight laugh of her own, "My sister said once, how could she go wrong if she was married to Mr. Wright?"

Jarod repeated the name softly to himself.  It felt, well, right.

To Be Continued


	12. En Route to Reunion

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Twelve: En route to Reunion

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware

Sydney stared down at the research reports without actually seeing them.  He was tired from trying to sleep on his office couch again.  He always kept extra clothes and toiletries at the Centre in case he needed to leave at a moments notice but he rarely used them on a day to day basis.  He had freshened up at dawn and had gone down to the Centre cafeteria for a muffin and a big mug of coffee.  They sat only half eaten on the side of his desk, right next to the phone that remained silent.  He sighed.  Years ago he had had quarters assigned to him at the Centre so he could oversee Jarod.  But he had grown accustomed to leaving every evening for the refuge of his home.  He had bought a place fifty miles away, so that the drive always provided him a time to unwind before he brought the tension of the Centre into his home.  He was getting old and set in his habits.  He wanted his own bed and the cup of tea he had the habit of making every morning, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the Centre last night.  He stared at the phone again, willing it to ring.  It sat there obstinately silent.

The brooding silence was broken by Broots pushing open his office door and peeking in.  "Sydney, you're here already," he said in surprise.

"You're here early yourself," rejoined Sydney.

Broots glanced over his shoulder and skittered into the office nervously, letting the door close softly behind him.  He came close to Sydney's desk being sure to keep his back to the camera he knew was tucked up in the corner and leaned toward Sydney holding out a scrap of paper with a short note scrawled on it.  "I was going to slip this in your desk," he whispered.  Then he straightened and said in a louder voice, "I'm just dropping in to get some work to take home.  Debbie is sick and I need to keep her home from school today.  Do you think you can handle everything by yourself today?" and he arched an eyebrow at Sydney to let him know to play along for the camera.

"Of course," returned Sydney smoothly, "With Miss Parker home sick as well, I have a chance to work on my other research projects."

"I'll see you Monday then," replied Broots and turned to leave.

Sydney picked up the coffee mug and with a distracting flourish raised it like a toast before bringing it to his lips, while he discretely dropped the note face up in his lap.  "I hope everyone is feeling better soon."  He nodded goodbye as Broots quickly left and then pretended to look in his desk drawer while he read the note.  

'Sydney, I'm meeting Miss Parker in Houston.  She has a lead on both Jarod and Eleanor Black.  See if you can find any old records about a project called Leukogenesis from the sixties.  Keep it quiet.  Broots'

Sydney felt an flash of irrational anger and was tempted to phone Miss Parker.  Had she heard from Jarod and not called to tell him that Jarod was all right.  He had a right to know if his former protégé was alive or dead.  Why would Jarod call her and not him anyway?  Miss Parker shot him in the first place.  She was always belittling his abilities and calling him names.  On the other hand, he had covered for Jarod on many occasions.  He had to admit that he was secretly afraid that Jarod hated him because of his role in holding Jarod in the Centre almost his entire life.  Sydney had to admit he despised himself for his lack of moral character all those years.  He had chosen not to see the wrongs.  Overlooked any hints of impropriety and continued on with his training and guidance of Jarod.  He missed the daily intellectual challenge that he and Jarod had enjoyed together while working on simulations.  Truth be told, he was really experiencing the empty nest syndrome, although he would never admit to Jarod that he thought of him like a son.  

Sydney took a deep shuddering breath crumpling the paper in his hand fiercely and stuffed it in his pocket while he stood up and pushed the desk drawer closed.  He needed a distraction.  A brisk walk down the halls to the Centre library was in order.  He would do what he could in finding any references to the Leukogenesis project.

Continental Airlines Flight 1734, from Raleigh, N.C. to Houston, TX

Amanda studied Miss Parker's profile thoughtfully.  Last night she had left Miss Parker in an elated mood having found a clue to where her own mother might be.  But when she met Miss Parker again at the airport in Raleigh the next morning, then she had seemed much more subdued.  She had barely spoken with her as they purchased tickets and proceeded through the security checks to their gate.  As soon as they had boarded the airplane, Miss Parker had leaned her head back into the seat and closed her eyes with a sigh.  Amanda had been afraid to disturb her ever since.

The stewardess finally made to their row with the beverage cart and Amanda touched Miss Parker's arm gently to see if she wanted to order something.  Parker sat straight up right startled by the touch.  "Do you want something to drink this morning?" the stewardess asked.

Parker nodded as she forced herself to lean back.  The adrenaline should have been enough, but the aroma begged her to order caffeine as well, "Coffee, black," she answered.

"I'll have orange juice, please," said Amanda brightly.

They were handed their drinks and sipped them in silence as the stewardess moved on to the next row.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," began Amanda hesitantly, "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Obviously not," Parker growled who really wasn't much of a morning person.  She saw the crestfallen look on Amanda's face and regretted her sarcastic comment.  "It's not your fault.  That couch was too short and had a bad spring," she finished in a softer tone.

"Couch?  Why didn't you sleep in the bedroom?  No one else was there," Amanda asked curiously.

"Ghosts," muttered Parker.

"Excuse me," Amanda hadn't heard her clearly.

"My mind was too full of thoughts and questions about what we had found out last night.  About your mother working at the Centre and being involved in the nursing care of my adopted sister.  Wondering whether we can find her and if she can tell me about my own mother.  Whether we'll find…" Parker stopped herself.  I really must be tired, she thought, I almost said Jarod.

Unlike Parker, Amanda was a morning person and had had a good night's sleep.  She was intelligent, astute and had met Jarod herself.  She knew what Parker was thinking.  "You're worried about Jarod aren't you?"

Parker nodded tiredly, "I hope he's found a clinic or something to stitch him up."

Amanda sat up straight in surprise and leaned towards Parker with her eyes slightly narrowed, "What do you mean, stitches?"

Parker raised her own eyebrows and assumed her best Ice Queen demeanor.  God!  She had really messed up and let that slip.  She found herself relaxing around this girl and knew that she shouldn't her guard down.  As much as she liked Amanda and wanted to help her find her mother, Parker had no delusions that they would be best friends ever afterwards.  Chances were that they would never see each again.  Why did that make her feel so sad?  She was a Parker.  She didn't need anyone and she didn't let feelings get in the way of her job.  Right?

Amanda sensed her hesitation.  "Please, I'm worried too.  You know more than you told me before don't you?"

Parker stared down at her coffee cup and then took a long sip of the hot liquid willing it to clear her mind.

"Please," Amanda begged.

Parker looked over slowly at Amanda.  The young woman's bright blue eyes and earnest face made her wish she could be young again.  But the years of life at the Centre had hardened her and her heart.  It would be easier to treat Amanda like a pawn if Amanda didn't like her.  If she confessed, then it would be that much easier to break their budding friendship.  "I shot him," Parker answered in a low, cold voice.

"What?!" exclaimed Amanda, "I thought you were friends."

"Were, is the operative word."

"Why?"

"We grew up together as kids, but then," Parker hesitated, she couldn't bring herself to say her own father, "fate separated us and we have very different lives as adults."

"No, why did you shoot him?" 

Parker swallowed and brushed her hair back absently from her face as the vision from the incident three nights ago played over in her mind again.  "It was an accident," she said more to herself than to Amanda.

"Why didn't you take him to an emergency room right away?" 

"He got up and ran away before we could catch him," Parker found herself explaining.

"Catch him!  He's not a criminal," Amanda said in Jarod's defense.  "All he wanted to do was help people like me find their family while he was finding his own.  What did he ever do to you?" she demanded hotly.

Parker thought to herself, he didn't run away with me when we had the chance as kids.  But then she focused on the words that Amanda had been saying and found her anchor.  "Exactly, he's looking for his parents and I'm looking for his father too.  If I follow Jarod, then he will lead me to his father."  Parker felt her belly fill with cold anger and was actually glad to feel its familiar clutch on her.  "Jarod was right there when Mr. Fenegor told me that his father killed my mother.  I want to know why and I want revenge," she ended with a bitter voice.  Her transformation back into the Ice Queen was complete.  She didn't just act it, she felt it.

Amanda pulled back in shock.  Her first impression of Miss Parker had been true.  She had started to like the woman, but now she was scared of her.  She gritted her teeth together.  Well, maybe she was being used, but she could use Miss Parker herself in order to find her mother.  She just hoped her misplaced trust would actually result in finding her mother.  If not, she was going to do what ever she could to keep Miss Parker from finding Jarod.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware

Sydney had been surprised to easily find a set of research notebooks in the library concerning the Leukogenesis project.  Apparently much of the work had been even been peer reviewed and published in medical journals.  It was from the good old days when Catherine had played a big role in guiding the Centre in doing beneficial and altruistic work.  After scanning through the set of notebooks, he had checked out the last one to read the summary and conclusions of the two year project back in his office.  They had experimented with different dosages and regimens of cellular growth factors to control the division rate of the various types of blood cells.  Sydney was impressed at the significant progress they had made in not only understanding the differentiation process, but also the ability to control and cure when it went awry in certain kinds of cancer.  He was totally engrossed in the document when his phone finally rang.  He was actually startled and stared at it as it rang a second time.  He muttered, "A watched pot…" as he reached out to pick up the receiver and gave his usual greeting, "This is Sydney."

"You sound distracted this morning," a rich low voice told him.

"Jarod," Sydney breathed with relief as he recognized the voice.  "Are you all right?"

"Sure, now that I've patched the ventilation holes," Jarod replied in a mildly sarcastic voice.

"I've been worried ever since Miss Parker returned with the blood samples to confirm it was you.  Why haven't you called me sooner," Sydney's stifled worry turned into a parental guilt trip.

"Now that I've had a day of antibiotics to bring down my fever, I find I'm able to think more clearly," Jarod replied dryly.  "Speaking of Miss Parker, is she there with you?"

Sydney glanced up at the camera in the upper corner of his office.  Any minute now they would know he was on the phone with Jarod.  He couldn't give away anything and yet he had to help Jarod before the young man would have to hang up on him to prevent them from tracing his call.  He just hoped the clues he gave to Jarod would be too difficult for the powers that be in the tower to decipher.  "No, actually she's been out sick the last few days.  I understand she's going to go to the Medical Center to get checked out.  Even Broots had to stay home with his sick daughter.  It's too bad too.  She just loves NASA and he was going to take her to see that movie about Apollo 13 that they filmed in Houston."

"Ah, I see," said Jarod as all the extraneous information was filtered through his brain.  He was briefly amazed at the risk Sydney was taking telling him so much even if it was in a kind of code.  "Well, I just wanted to let you know I was better.  Maybe we can all take the weekend off to rest and resume the chase bright and early Monday morning?" he asked knowing that no such thing was possible.

Sydney chuckled softly and then pulled the phone closer to talk softly into the handset, "Jarod, take care of yourself," he said sincerely.

"Thanks," Jarod replied and hung up.

Sydney sighed and leaned back in his chair with relief.  He hadn't been willing to admit to himself just how worried he had become.  Now that he knew Jarod wasn't dead, he could allow himself to go home again.  He'd work a while longer on this interesting research report and then go home early this afternoon for a good night's sleep.

Houston, Texas, Friday Morning

Jarod hung up the phone and thoughtfully disconnected the wires to a small signal scrambler that he had devised to keep the Centre from tracking his calls.  So Miss Parker and Broots were on their way to Houston, but without the knowledge of the Centre.  He smiled pleased with the thought that he was right about Miss Parker having a good heart hidden down inside of her, but then he shook his head with a scowl.  She had found and figured out the clues in the research papers he'd left behind faster than he thought she would.  She was getting better at this little game he played with her of leaving clues as he led her on their game of chase.  Never in the three years that he had been free had he found so worthy an adversary as Miss Parker.  No woman came close to the perfect bundle of brains, bravery and beauty that she possessed.  He was half tempted to call her just to hear her voice again, but he needed to stay a step ahead of her and time was running thin.

"Emily," he called out as he stepped out of the small office and bedroom into the short hallway, "we have to go do this right away."

She stepped out of her daughter's bedroom holding the little girl's hand and hefting the baby on her hip.  They all had on shoes and coats and were ready to go.  "Just let me grab the diaper bag and we'll be all set," she answered.

"Mom, will you drive my car with the kids?" she asked turning to Mary.  "I want to talk to Jarod about what we need to do before we get there and I don't want to scare Kimie."

"Sure, honey," agreed the older woman as she helped buckle the children into their cars seats.  "Y'all want to sing songs with Nanny?" she asked the little girl rhetorically.

It was a short fifteen minute ride to the sprawling Houston medical center complex.  Five major hospitals, two medical schools, dozens of specialty clinics, and dozens of buildings filled with doctors offices were packed into an area only about one mile square.  It almost took longer to find parking spaces in the high rise garage than it had to drive to the complex.  Jarod and Emily had discussed the experimental protocols that they needed to use in order to determine the degree of genetic similarity that they shared.  Emily enjoyed talking medicine again and not just mothering tips that she had been immersed in lately.  Jarod was pleased at how easily she followed his train of thought.  She had clearly done medical research before as she had anticipated several of the problems that he had been concerned with in terms of actually performing the DNA screening.  As much as his heart believed all that Mary had told him about his parents and being his aunt, his mind still wanted definitive proof that he belonged to her family.

Emily led their little group into the main entrance of the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  She nodded pleasantly at the bored security guard and led them confidently past all the streams of patients and medical workers through a series of maze like corridors.  They turned down a long hallway and into a large waiting room with a check in desk at one end.  "Hi, I'm Dr. Brooks.  Did Dr. White call down to make us an appointment?"

"Yes, she told us it was a priority analysis.  Yvonne is almost finished with a patient now and I'll send you right in as soon as she is done," replied the nurse with a concerned smile.  Clearly curious, but too well trained to ask what was so important.

Before they could even get settled in seats to wait, they were being beckoned back to a small room where the technician sat ready with her supplies to draw their blood samples.  They had decided to have Emily and her mother Mary have their blood drawn first, so they would be able to comfort the children after their blood was drawn.  Jarod found himself holding the baby with his good left arm and trying to keep him from wiggling away.  "Hey little man," Jarod said softly getting his attention, "Do you know how lucky you are to be growing up with a Mama who loves you?"

The child looked up at Jarod with big eyes and gave him a toothy grin.  Reaching a chubby hand up, the baby first patted his face and then fingered the mustache.  Jarod had almost forgotten the hair cut and old fashioned grooming that his cousin had playfully given him that morning.  It seemed like a lifetime ago.  Now he had a family to belong to and best yet, a name to really call his own.  His confidence level had never been higher as he felt assured that he would find his own parents soon as well.

Emily stepped out of the room and took the baby from him, "Here, you shouldn't strain your shoulder with Mr. Chubby," she said as she tickled the little boys tummy.  

The technician, Yvonne, finished drawing Mary's blood and then pointed to the little girl, Kimie.  "Let her sit in her grandma's lap.  I'll need you to help hold her arm still," she said to Mary.  Kimie scooted solemnly into her grandmother's lap having watched both her mother and grandmother getting their blood drawn.  Bravely she threw her arm out and turned her head the other way with her eyes squeezed shut.  Mary murmured softly to her and the technician quickly drew the sample saying, "My, you're braver than a lot of the grownups I get in here."

Mary took Kimie back out into the waiting room and Emily sat down with the baby.  He of course didn't like having his arm held down tightly and immediately began to howl when the needle punctured his little arm.  Unfortunately, the vein seemed to roll away and no blood was coming out.  The technician tried again, and again missed the small veins of the child.  Jarod stepped in and knelt down next to the technician placing a hand on her arm to stop her from poking him again.  "He's too small to draw from his arm, use his leg veins," he advised.

"I've never done that," she replied.

Neither have I, thought Jarod, but he said, "I can show you how."

Yvonne stared into his dark brown eyes and could see his sincerity, "I'm not supposed to, but if you really need to get his blood sample, I think you should do it."

She put the prepared band-aid on the baby's arm while Jarod rolled up his little pants leg.  Emily patted and tried to soothe the baby but he howled in anger now that his arm hurt and they were holding his leg out on the chair arm.  Deftly, Jarod inserted the needle and quickly drew the necessary vial of blood, then handing the tube to the nurse, he put the band-aid on the baby himself, "Sorry, little man, we're all done now."

Emily stood up cuddling the crying infant, "I'm going to go nurse him while you get your blood drawn," and she walked back to the waiting room herself.

Jarod now took the chair and looked over at the last empty vial she had waiting.  "You'll need to get three more vials in order for us to get a big enough sample from me."

The young black woman looked at him curiously, but went ahead and pulled three more vials from her supplies cart, pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and reached for his left arm.

"I already have a bad right shoulder, use that arm," he said twisting sideways in the chair and presenting his right arm to her.

"You're just full of special requests today, aren't you," Yvonne joked as she rubbed the inside of his elbow with alcohol.  She filled with first two vials quickly, but the blood flow slowed down when she attached the third tube.  He reached down himself and resettled the needle at a sharper angle and the vial began filling again.  "Are you a doctor?" she asked.

"Today I'm a researcher," he replied smiling with a little crooked smile.

Emily poked her head in the door, "I'm going to…What are you doing?  How many vials of blood have you taken?" she demanded the technician in a worried tone.

"I told her to take three more," Jarod answered.

"That's almost half a pint!  You can't give that much blood," she insisted.

"We need to make a probe from my DNA," he reminded her.  "I'll be fine."

Emily clenched her teeth and glared at him for a moment, "I'm still your doctor.  You should have consulted with me."

"It wouldn't have made any difference.  We need that much."

Emily realized that dealing with Jarod when he was sick was a totally different experience than dealing with him now that he was better.  He would do whatever he wanted to do without her consent, and really she had no claim on him to require it.  They locked eyes and Jarod gave her a smug smile.  She nodded slowly and took a deep breath, "As I was saying, I'm going to walk mother back to the car and send her home with the kids.  Then I'll stop at the cafeteria and get you," she pointed sternly at Jarod, "some food to keep your strength up.  Meanwhile, you can watch them prepare the DNA from the blood samples."

Jarod nodded in acquiescence and Emily turned away satisfied with the plan.

The technician finished filling the last vial and placed a large cotton ball over the needle as she pulled it out to help stop the blood flow.  Jarod bent his elbow and helped hold up his arm with his other hand.  "My doctor ordered me to watch you prepare the samples," he said in an innocent sounding voice.

She laughed lightly, "I'll take you over to the lab right now.  Dr. White said to help you expedite this genetic analysis today."

Jarod started to stand up and immediately gray spots swam before his eyes.  He swayed forward reaching out to steady himself on the chair.  Yvonne reacted quickly and grabbed his right arm to catch him which caused him to gasp in pain.  She pushed him back down into the chair and leaned over him in concern, "I'm sorry.  I forgot you told me you have a bad shoulder.  Maybe Dr. Brooks was right about you giving too much blood.  Let me give you some apple juice, we keep it here for the patients who donate blood."  She stepped out of the room, leaving Jarod taking deep breaths.

Jarod nodded, his head clearing now that he was sitting again.  Emily was right.  He'd probably lost too much blood from being shot, but they really did need to get enough of his white blood cells in order to prepare enough DNA to both analyze and make a probe.  He was mad at his body for betraying him.  He needed to be ready to fight or run, but he was still too weak from the wound and his infection.  He was going to have to keep trusting people around him, as vulnerable as that made him feel.

The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware

Lyle impatiently stood outside of Mr. Raines' office glaring at Willie, Raines' personal body guard.  "He left strict instructions not to be disturbed," declared Willie.

"This is urgent.  I have a fresh lead on Jarod," insisted Lyle loudly.  Loud enough, he hoped, to be heard through the door.

"Shouldn't you pass it on to Miss Parker then," Willie said snidely.

"She's home 'sick'," Lyle snorted.  "Besides, its from my own sources."

They both heard the click of the lock and the door swung open to reveal the emaciated form of Mr. Raines.  "I'm ready for visitors now, Willie," wheezed Raines.

Lyle pushed past Willie brusquely and up close into Raines' personal space, "I need your authorization to go after Jarod again, and approval for a $10,000 reward," Lyle said in a low urgent voice.

Raines turned away as if Lyle wasn't even there and shuffled slowly back to his desk and lowered himself to his chair.  "Mr. Lyle," he drawled as if just seeing him for the first time, "You were clearly less than successful earlier this week and just as obviously damaged the goods we've been trying to recover.  Why should I give you another chance?"

"Because I have a fresh lead from a credible source," Lyle said trying to restrain the impatience in his voice.  He crossed to the desk and laid a fax page on the desk.  It was a blurry image of Jarod taken from a security camera with the time and date stamp showing to have been taken only 45 minutes earlier.  "Right after Jarod was shot, I alerted a number of security people I've recruited around the country who work at major hospitals to be on the look out for him.  We knew he would require medical attention.  I had to offer a reward to make it worth their time to pay attention.  Well, someone sent this in from Houston to claim that reward.  I want permission to take the jet and go after Jarod right away," demanded Lyle.

Raines picked up the fax and studied the picture.  His hair was parted unusually and he had a mustache but his disguise was old fashioned not effective.  It was definitely Jarod.  Raines gave his version of a smile that came off more like a grimace, "Fine, but I'm coming with you this time," he growled.

TBC


	13. Reunions of Friends

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Thirteen: Reunions of Friends…

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Friday, Noon

Emily wound her way deftly through the throngs of people crowding into the cafeteria balancing two cartons of milk on top of the to-go boxes.  She had sent her children home with their grandmother for their afternoon naps, and was returning to the blood lab with some lunch for Jarod and herself.  She was mentally berating herself for not questioning more fully about the probe he had mentioned.  She hadn't imagined that they would make it from his DNA, but in hindsight it seemed perfectly obvious.  You certainly couldn't order up a probe from any of the medical supply companies for a "pretender" gene.  She was just concerned about Jarod giving too much blood.  She really had no idea how much he had lost when he had gotten shot, and given how weak and fevered he had been just two days ago, he could hardly be said to be recovered.  In fact, his stamina and determination to come do this analysis was impressive.  The least she could do was make sure that he kept his strength up by having some healthy food.

She peeked into the waiting room where they had been before and didn't see Jarod.  Having spent several years doing research in the adjoining Jones Research facility she knew her way around quite well, and quickly walked down the hall to the big lab that processed blood samples for all sorts of basic analyses.  It took her a moment to talk her way in the door, but Dr. White had left her name as she had requested that morning and she was admitted to the big room full of lab benches in the center and large equipment like centrifuges and refrigerators around the walls of the room.  There were four people in white lab coats working intently at the benches and off in the corner she spotted Jarod.  He was sitting sideways at one of the desks along the far wall.  He had his feet up on a desk and he was reclining dangerously back in the chair in a delicate balance with his eyes closed peacefully.  She shook her head in amusement.  Who else could possibly "relax" in such a precarious position with their chair liable to slide out from under them at any moment.  One of the technicians turned and smiled at her.  She recognized the woman Yvonne who had drawn their blood earlier.  Giving the technician's a brief smile and nod, she walked quietly across the room afraid to startle Jarod and cause him to tumble out of the chair.

The various mechanical sounds in the room disguised her footsteps, but the aroma of the hot lunch proceeded her and Jarod blinked his eyes open, languidly turning his head and looking at Emily at she walked towards him.  He gave her one of his brilliant smiles and slowly rocked his center of mass forward rotating the chair on its two back legs and allowing the two front legs to land smartly on the floor with a snap.  "We're waiting for the centrifuge to finish with the sucrose gradient spin to separate the white and red blood cells," he explained.

Emily carefully set the to-go boxes down and handed him a carton of milk, "Here, you should get your blood sugar levels up."

"Thanks," he replied, "Yvonne already helped me with a small can of apple juice, and putting my feet up sure helped, but I think I'm still a little dizzy."

"Dizzy?" she echoed with concern.

"I'll be alright.  You're here now and I can tell you what to do," he reassured her.

Emily studied him carefully finally beginning to see through his bravado to realize how weak he was.  She reached in her purse and pulled out two plastic packets with a napkin and disposable silverware wrapped inside.  Handing him one, she slid a lunch box in front of him and ordered, "Eat!"

Jarod tipped back the lid and smiled at the big serving of lasagna and two big helpings of vegetables that she had brought him.  He began eating hungrily and Emily pulled another chair next to his and opened up her own half sized serving of lasagna.  They ate in silence until Emily finally got brave enough to begin questioning about the preparation of the probe they needed.  "What do we need to do in order to make this probe?  Do you need any particular restriction enzymes?"

Jarod answered by pulling a tablet off a shelf and tearing a page out of the back.  He tapped a pen idly on his leg, as he stared off at a far distance at the wall.  He didn't see the wall, but something in his memory.  Suddenly, he began writing rapidly, covering the page with neat square print outlining a purification protocol for the sample of DNA that they needed to prepare from his own blood.  Emily watched in growing amazement as he wrote.  No one could remember anything that complicated.  She stared at his profile as her jaw dropped slightly, thinking to herself, 'There's no way I share any of his genes.'

Jarod nonchalantly dropped the pen and picked up the fork in the same motion, taking a big bite out of the last of his lasagna and turned to her pushing the paper towards his cousin.  She was staring at him in wonder.  "What?" he said stupidly with his mouth full.

The spell was broken and Emily laughed nervously, "Let me study the procedure now."  Most of it was a basic DNA purification procedure but two of enzymes he specified were not ones that she recognized, "I've never heard of these," she said pointing to the two steps in the outline.

Jarod nodded in agreement, "Yes, they are rather uncommon, but surely somewhere in this huge complex of the Medical Center there is a lab that has them in their freezer."

Fortunately, Emily was spared trying to think of a solution to their dilemma by the arrival of none other than her friend, Dr. Evelyn White.  The older woman pushed open the door of the lab and strode in confidently nodding at the technicians.  She spied Emily immediately and crossed the room with her starched white lab coat streaming behind her like a wake.  She was a tall, thin woman with a permanent frown etched in her forehead, but her eyes were kind as she smiled at Emily reaching out to shake her hand.  "Nonsense," she declared and gathered Emily in a hug.  "It's so good to see you, Emily!  I was surprised to get your call this morning but when you said it was urgent I tried to get everything set up for you as best I could.  Did you bring your sweet children?" she asked looking around half curiously, finally noticing Jarod.  "Is this your cousin?"

"I already sent the kids home with my mother for their naps, but I want you to meet Jarod," Emily said stepping back out of the hug and gesturing over to him, "Jarod this is…"  Emily stopped speaking at the dark look on his face.  "What…?" she faltered.

His dark brown eyes were filled with anger, "Have you understood nothing that I've told you," he snapped at her.  Emily's face fell in shock at his reaction.  Immediately, his own face softened and his eyes filled with concern, "I don't want you or your family to be hurt because of me.  You know what they're capable of doing," he said and reached up to take her hand.  Emily nodded like a small child her eyes obviously full of tears that she kept blinking back.  "Will you check on how Yvonne is doing with purifying the DNA?" he asked gently.  "I need to talk to Dr. White alone."

Again Emily nodded, then she glanced at the older woman saying, "Excuse me a moment," and walked back towards the center of the room where the technician was working.

Dr. Evelyn White had watched the exchange curiously, worry for her young friend, Emily, growing and turned stern eyes on this man who had just ordered her around like a child.  Before she could say anything however, he pushed a chair towards her and gestured with an incline of his head for her to sit.  "Dr. Evelyn White.  Or should I call you Eleanor Black?" he said in his rich deep voice.  She stared at his dark brown, almost hypnotic eyes and found herself sinking slowly into the chair.

"Please forget anything you know about us being related," he asked her earnestly.

"Why does it matter so much?" she asked on edge that he called her by her real name.

"I can't let the Centre find out about her," he replied in a quiet voice studying her face carefully for her reaction.

The older woman's face blanched and she swallowed hard, "The Centre," she echoed in fear.

He leaned forward to talk even more quietly, "I know you ran away from your job there many years ago.  I know you faked your own death four years ago to get away from them again.  You had to so you could protect your family.  Well, I've run away from them too and I'm just trying to protect my family."

"I understand," she whispered back and glanced over her shoulder at the room to make sure that know one was listening to them.

"There's more," Jarod said reaching out and taking one of her hands gently, "I became friends with your daughter, Amanda.  I was trying to help her find you.  I think she's on her way here now."

Dr. White pulled back in shock, "I can't see her!" she exclaimed loudly.  Glancing at the room she continued in a lower voice but with a firm tone, "I will not have her put in danger, besides she'll never forgive me for what I've done."

"She'll understand if you explain that you were trying to protect her," Jarod began.

Dr. White stood up quickly scowling down on him, her forehead wrinkled in a customary frown, "You had no right to mess around with my family.  Don't worry, I'll protect your family.  Mostly because I don't want to see Emily get hurt.  What do you need these tests for if you know you're cousins already?"

"We don't know for sure, and if Emily is related to me, then we need to know if she has inherited the same abilities as me.  Please, we need your help.  I'm sorry if what I've done has hurt you.  I'm just trying to help people and make up for some of the hurt I've caused," Jarod said earnestly.

Dr. White stared down at him as her frown deepened, not in anger now, but in concentration.  She said his name softly like she had just heard it for the first time, "Jarod.  Your name is Jarod.  You are the boy Catherine wanted to rescue all those years ago," she stated rather than questioned and slowly sank back down into the chair staring at him.

"Yes," he said breathlessly, "Did she ever tell you about me or my family?"

She shook her head sadly, "No, she only mentioned you once.  She wanted to take her daughter, you and another boy, Tommy or Timmy, I think, away from the Centre.  But then she was gone.  Suicide they said, but she had too much to live for, too many plans to throw her life away.  No, they took her life and I ran away so they couldn't take mine.  But now you are here and just when I've thought I'd gotten away, here they come again."  She put her hand to her head and rested her elbow on her knee with her head bowed.  "I was really helping to make a difference here too," she sighed sadly.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, "I don't think the Centre knows about you.  Well, Miss Parker does, but my sources tell me she's coming here without official orders to do so.  I'm pretty sure she's helping your daughter too."

"Catherine's daughter could only be helpful and gentle like her mother," she nodded hopefully.

"I wouldn't say that," Jarod chuckled to himself.  "Miss Parker is anything but gentle."

Dr. White looked in confusion at him and then seemed to make up her mind, "Well, I'll take you over to the Clinical Research Building and set you two up with a bench for the weekend.  Then I'm going back to my lab and clearing out of here.  I can't afford to let the Centre find me after all I've gone through, and I don't want my daughter to find me either," she declared firmly.

"She loves you and needs you.  If you have any chance to be with your family you should take it, not throw it away.  Don't do that to her or yourself," Jarod pleaded.  "I'd give anything for just a hug from my own parents," he admitted wistfully.

The sound of a throat clearing startled the pair and they looked to see Emily walking up with a test tube rack full of vials in her hands.  "The samples are ready.  Do you have those enzymes, Evelyn?"

Dr. White looked at Emily in confusion, "What enzymes?"

"Jarod, weren't you showing her the protocol that you wrote out?"

"Ah, we had a few other things to discuss first," he hedged.

"Here it is," Emily said leaning between the two seated on chairs and pulling the protocol Jarod had written off the desk and handing it to Dr. White.  "Do you have these enzymes in your lab?" she asked pointing to a line in the middle of the long procedure.

"Hmm, most unusual, hmm," murmured Dr. White as she quickly scanned the sheet.  "We have most of these reagents, but these restriction enzymes are unusual.  I'd have to check the inventory list to be sure.  They might have them over at Baylor where they're working on sequencing the human genome.  I've worked with a number of the researchers there and I'm sure they'd lend me some if I promised to replace it right away."

"That would be great, wouldn't it Jarod?" said Emily trying to cut through the tension she felt between her two friends.

"Yes," he nodded, "we'd appreciate any help you can give us."  He put his good left hand on the desk to lever himself out of the chair and swayed on to his feet.  "Emily, that lunch has taken all the blood down to my stomach to digest it.  I think I'm still a bit dizzy," and he leaned over unsteadily.

Emily thrust the rack of vials at the older woman and quickly slid under his good arm planting her shoulder into his armpit and her arm around his waist as he couldn't help but lean heavily on her.  "I knew you shouldn't have given so much blood!" she exclaimed.  "I should probably check your bandage soon too."

"Are you injured," Dr. White asked in surprise.  He had given no previous indication of injury except perhaps having never risen from the chair.

"Bullet hole courtesy of our "gentle" Miss Parker," he said sarcastically, his eyes focusing on her as the dizziness passed and he got used to being on his feet.  "Please help us finish this DNA analysis."

"I guess I can stay for the afternoon and leave this evening," Dr. White relented slowly.

Jarod smiled encouragingly and Emily started to maneuver him towards the door, "Let's get going already," she complained and they all chuckled.  The tension between Jarod and Dr. White was reduced considerably and they headed off to the clinical lab to work for the afternoon.

Houston Intercontinental Airport, Friday, 1 PM

"I told you to catch the first plane out," scolded Parker as Broots cowered in front of her.

To his credit, he looked her in the eye as he defended himself, "I d-d-did.  I had to change planes in D-d-dallas and they're having thunderstorms up there.  It d-d-delayed everything.  The news said they'll be in Houston by evening."

"You've been watching the news while I've been pacing this barn of an airport," she exclaimed.

"Well, they have TV's in all the waiting areas now days," he defended himself quietly.

"Whatever!  Show me what you found out in the car."  Parker turned to Amanda who had been standing to one side all but forgotten until now.  "You'll drive," she snapped her fingers at Amanda and strode out of the baggage claim area where they had finally met up with Broots.

Broots glanced over at Amanda and gave her a small smile, "Hi again."

"Why do you work for her?" Amanda asked.

He shrugged, "She's not so bad, once you get to know her."

"Comimg?" Miss Parker hissed from the door that led outside to the lot where the Hertz rental cars were parked.

The two quickly caught up with Miss Parker as she led the way through the parking lot to the numbered stall that they were told held their rental car.  She held out the electronic key and was rewarded with the snapping sound of the doors unlocking and then the trunk lid rising silently as she pushed the buttons.  They tossed their overnight bags in the trunk and Parker handed the keys to Amanda as she climbed in the back seat, "Okay, Broots, boot up your lap top."

Amanda climbed into the driver's seat, adjusting it to her leg length, and then pulled out a Houston map to study the roadways and how to get to the Medical Center from the airport.  If she could get to the main north-south highway I-45 it would take her right into downtown and then the Medical Center was just a short distance west on another highway.

"Today!" snapped Parker interrupting Amanda's studying.

Amanda turned angrily in her seat and stared fiercely into Parker's eyes, "I do not work for you.  I'm here to find my mother.  I have never been to this town before.  If you want me to drive, then you have to let me study a map for a few minutes."

Parker sat back in the seat realizing that Amanda was right and secretly feeling guilty about treating the young woman so badly.  "You're right, of course.  I'm sorry.  Carry on with plotting our route," she said in a sincere voice.  She turned to Broots who was gaping at her in surprise for her open apology, and continuing in the gentler voice she asked, "Please show me what you found out about the Leucogenesis project."

He grinned happily at her, flipped open his laptop and began the process of pulling up the files he had copied the night before, "Let me lead you through the highlights," he began eagerly.

Amanda turned the key in the ignition and maneuvered the car out of the lot and onto the road.  She didn't pay attention to the quiet voices in the back seat as she navigated her way out of the airport and onto the highway.  When she was finally comfortable with cruising on the interstate sometime later, she finally looked back in her rearview mirror at them and was startled at the stricken expression she saw on Miss Parker's face.  Broots was busy looking at the computer screen and murmuring something about medical procedures and didn't see her expression.

Parker was staring sadly at the computer screen but wasn't actually seeing anything there.  She was reliving the childhood memory of losing Faith, the adopted sister she had only briefly known.  Slowly her face hardened as Broots' words sunk in.  Raines had killed her.  In the interests of science, ha!  The eight children that were part of the leukemia study all had identical forms of the disease.  Raines and his fellow doctors had made significant strides in understanding the process of differentiation from a single stem cell whose daughter cells could become any of the various types of blood cells that the body made for the immune defense system.  There were many places where that process could go wrong and cause diseases.  By manipulating growth factors in the bone marrow of the children by injecting them with different drugs, they had sorted out many of the factors that controlled the process.  While one boy's regimen had been changed to match that of the two children who showed the fastest recovery, her sister's had not been changed.  In fact, she continued to worsen while all the other children's treatment regimens had been adjusted to that they all ultimately showed signs of remission of the disease.  He hadn't just withheld the right course of treatment for her;  he had actually exacerbated her condition.  Parker clenched her jaw in anger and determination.  She would see that fiend go to the hell where he belonged.

Amanda had to keep an eye on the road, but found herself continually glancing back at Parker as her expression slowly hardened.  The mercurial nature of the woman was hard to understand.  Just when you started to empathize with her, she'd get so cold and distant it was frightening.  Whatever happened that day, she definitely didn't want the murderous look Miss Parker had on her face turned on to her.  So she focused back on the road and carefully avoided looking in the rear view mirror again.

M.D. Anderson Hospital, Houston, 2 PM

Andy Morgan, the security guard who had spotted Jarod that morning, sat in the security office still watching the display of monitors.  His shift had ended at noon, but he wasn't about to leave early.  He had received a reply fax from a Mr. Lyle telling him to keep the suspect under surveillance, but to do nothing else if he expected to get his reward.  Most of the screens were on a continuous switching scan from the various cameras around the hospital, but the center monitor was set to continuous view on the corridor that held the blood lab.  It was the last place he had seen the oddly old fashioned looking man go in to with the help of a black woman in a white, lab coat.  She had come out an hour ago, but he hadn't seen the man come out yet, and he was certain the man was still inside.

The monitor on the immediate left was also set to continuous recording of the front entrance and a group of men just entering caught his eye.  The older man in the center of the group looked like he could have been a patient with his stooped walk as he dragged an oxygen tank on wheels behind himself.  The burly black man at his side looked out of place as he was clearly a bodyguard despite his natty black suit.  But, it was the other tall man dressed in a clearly expensive and perfectly tailored suit that caught Andy's eye.  He watched as the man coolly assessed the camera and flashed a wolfish grin at it.  He stepped up to the guard on duty and asked directions for the main security office giving Andy Morgan's name as a reference.  Andy smiled as he realized this must be the Mr. Lyle he had been waiting for and couldn't help but quiver with expectation of the easy ten grand he was just about to earn for having kept his eyes open.  He could just imagine himself watching football on the big screen TV he was going to buy.

"Hey, Joe," Andy called to a another guard in the office, "Keep on eye on this monitor and call me if a man with a mustache comes out of the door will you?" he asked as he handed Joe a walkie-talkie.  "I gotta go meet a friend."  He quickly walked out into the corridor and met the three men just as they turned down it.  "Mr. Lyle?" he asked as he held out his hand to shake hands.

Lyle pointedly ignored the extended hand and merely tilted his head in acknowledgment, "Mr. Morgan, take us to the suspect.  You'll understand if we're in a hurry," with a smug smile that held no warmth in his eyes.

"Uh, sure, I've kept on eye on where he went and haven't done anything to spook him like you asked," Andy began expectantly.

Lyle narrowed his eyes at him, reached into his lapel pocket, pulled out a fat envelope and handed it to him, "Now will you lead the way," Lyle demanded.

Andy fingered the envelope briefly and then stuffed it in the side pocket of his coat grinning.  "He went into the blood lab just before noon and hasn't come out yet," he said confidently as he led the way through the main hospital corridors.

When they arrived in front of the doors to the blood lab, the old man took up a stance out in the corridor looking both ways to make sure no one was coming and then nodded at the two younger men.  Andy was shocked as they both pulled guns out of their coats and the before he could protest, the black man kicked in the door and they went in with their guns held out, their elbows locked straight in front of them to steady their shot.  They pivoted slowly scanning the room and Lyle exclaimed, "Damn!"  He inclined his head towards the room and in effect ordered the other man to search the room just by saying his name expectantly, "Willie."

Andy followed a step into the door and saw three technicians with shocked faces looking back at them.  The burly black man was quickly stomping around the room as he searched behind the counters and finally turned to shake his head at Lyle.

Lyle slipped his gun back into his holster under his jacket and pulled a photograph out of his pocket.  He walked over to the three frightened employees and held out the photo, "Have you seen this man today?" he demanded.

"He left about 12:30," replied one in a small voice.

"12:30," echoed Lyle.

"Yeah, they left out the emergency exit," said another hoping these men would leave soon too.

"They?" questioned Lyle.  "Who was he with?" he demanded.

"Two women," the man answered.  "I don't know the red head, but Dr. White met them and she was the one who sent the okay for them to be in here."

"Where's this Dr. White's office?" growled Lyle.

"I'm not sure exactly, somewhere in the Basic Research wing?" he replied starting to get frightened of the cold look that crossed Lyle's face.

The other two shrugged their shoulders as Lyle raked his questioning look over them.  He spun sharply on his heels and strode back to the befuddled Andy.  He stuffed his hand into Andy's coat pocket and withdrew the envelope that had just been placed there, "You haven't earned this yet.  Find me Dr. White's office," he demanded icily.

They stepped out into the corridor, and the old man stepped up to them with a cold look of his own.  He spoke for the first time, and his wheezing voice sent chills down Andy's spine, "We will use your office and its resources as we continue our search," he declared rather than asked and led the way himself back to the main security office.

Marriott Hotel, Houston, 2:30 PM

While they drove past downtown Houston, Miss Parker had worked her cell phone trying to track down Evelyn White from the lead of the research paper they had found.  The second name, Dr. Barry Stone had led to a chatty secretary who had left Parker's head reeling.  The secretary explained that since Dr. Stone traveled a lot, Evelyn White usually ran the lab, but that she had left early that day at lunch, and so no one was there who could answer her questions, although she often came in on Saturday mornings to check on long term projects.  So Parker had commanded they find a hotel and Amanda was only too grateful to comply after dealing with all the traffic.  

Amanda gratefully stopped the car and rolled her head in circles as she rubbed her neck.  They had woven in and out of the congested roadways of the medical center, Broots calling out the names of one enormous medical building or hospital after another as they got a feel for the place and looked for a hotel near MD Anderson.  

Now Broots felt car sick from looking all around the huge medical center complex.  He tumbled out of the car lugging his laptop and the DSA player he had brought, hoping they would have time for a little rest.  It had been a long day of traveling after a long night with little rest.  He watched in amusement as Miss Parker approached the valet with all her charm turned on.  She stroked him seductively under the chin with one long finger and handed him a twenty as she asked him to keep the car up front so it would be available at a moment's notice.

"She knows how to get what she wants, doesn't she?" observed Amanda wryly from the trunk where she was pulling out her overnight bag.

"Yeah, she's the best," agreed Broots in open admiration.

"You're hopeless," said Amanda dismissively and turned away to walk into the lobby.

Miss Parker quickly arranged for them to each have their own room and as they rode up in the elevator Broots looked even more queasy.  "I have to lie down awhile, Miss Parker," he said begging permission with his eyes.

Her face softened and she smiled gently, "You did good with the files, Broots.  Take a rest and we'll meet back together later to go over them more.  I'm sure Amanda here won't mind accompanying me on a reconnaissance mission to find out where the research labs are located in this huge medical center."  She looked over at Amanda with her clear blue eyes open and inviting.

Amanda found herself smiling and nodding yes, and found it hard to believe she had ever seen a murderous look in this beautiful woman's eyes.

They dropped their things in their room and met back out in the hallway in a few minutes.  Parker had changed her high heeled shoes for a more comfortable pair of boots to walk in and Amanda had taken a light jacket out of her bag in expectation of the rain Broots had warned was on the way.  Indeed, as they walked out of the lobby and on to the street, the sky was thickening with clouds and gusts of wind blew first from the south and then from the north as the warm air off the Gulf of Mexico battled the cold front that was approaching from the north.  It reminded Amanda of Miss Parker's personality that changed without warning just like the directions that the wind was coming from.  She looked sideways out of her eye at Miss Parker as she strode confidently beside her.  Parker's dark hair blew back off her face and her keen eyes scanned all around her noting every detail as she cataloged this new city.  She looked ready to face whatever came her way;  Amanda just hoped she would be too.

TBC


	14. and Foes

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Fourteen: …and Foes

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Dear Readers, Thank you so much for the reviews and encouragement to finish this story!  I have been really swamped with work and organizing Science Fair at my kids' school (over 300 participants) and if I ever found a chance to get on the computer, I found myself reading all of YOUR excellent stories.  So please keep posting, and I'll try to bring this adventure to a close as well.  Note:  As everyone converges, I felt it would be confusing unless I separated the parts, but didn't want to keep stating their locations.  Just imagine everyone coming into a really huge hospital from different directions along different hallways until they converge in the research lab.  Hope my asterisks help signal the changes.

Houston, Texas, Friday, 4 PM

Emily peeked into the employee lounge at the Clinical Research building.  Jarod lay sprawled on the small couch with his hurt arm cradled across his chest and his left arm bent across his face shading his eyes.  His feet were up on a lamp table they had pushed close and removed the lamp so that he would have his feet up.  It had been hard to talk him into taking a rest.  

He had eagerly endorsed Dr. White's suggestion that they exit the blood lab by the back door and short cut across the delivery driveways to the back of the research building.  Per the doctor's orders, the technician's already had set up the apparatus to do the usual DNA analysis and they swiftly took the DNA samples which they brought and processed them into the gel electrophoresis system that would separate the DNA into characteristic lengths that would enable them to determine how similar and thus how closely related they were.  At first he wanted to oversee everything, but as he watched the technician's competence he relented.  Emily had insisted on starting the purification process to prepare the probe from his blood and made him sit on a stool watching and only giving directions.  Dr. White had found the first of the rare enzymes in the lab, but then spent a half hour phoning around the medical center to find the second.  She had left with an ice bucket and had returned triumphantly twenty minutes later so the procedure could continue.  Then Emily noticed him wilting on the stool, and she had insisted that he lay down or she would take him home whether the analysis was complete or not.  Now with the small vial of purified DNA in her hands she was loathe to disturb him.

"Jarod," she called softly as she stepped into the lounge.  He rolled his left arm up to his forehead, revealing his dark brown eyes that stared back at her expectantly.  "We have to put the radioactive tag on the DNA sample so we can use it as a probe.  They don't have P-32 here in the lab, but Dr. White does back in her lab.  She's going to take me there so I can phosphorylate the probe, while she cleans out her office.  It should take about 45 minutes and then we'll be back to set up the overnight incubation.  Then I should take you home.  Why don't you just stay here and rest?"

"I should come to make sure you're safe," he replied struggling to sit up, but feeling the fatigue slowing him down.

She smiled warmly at him, "I'll be alright.  You're just like my big brother always worrying over me.  You're the one who needs to be taken care of, not me.  You need to get your strength back.  Try to take a little nap."

He nodded in acquiescence and leaned back on the couch, "All right, but be careful.  Keep a look out and come right back here if any trouble starts."

Emily nodded back, "I'll be back before you know it."  She turned from the lounge and walked back to the big lab where Dr. White was watching the final preparations of the standard DNA analysis.  "He's agreed to stay here and rest," she announced with relief in her voice, "but I have a feeling we should get this done as quickly as possible."

"Right," said Dr. White briskly and began leading the way out of the lab.  They made an odd couple as they walked out of the building, a tall, thin, older woman and a short, plump, younger one talking animatedly about science together.

The two women quickly crossed the loading zone between the two buildings and Dr. White used a magnetic pass key to open a restricted entry door that led to the basement storage of the Basic Research Building.  Then she led the way up a stairwell positioned there at the end of the building.  "This is the emergency or fire stairwell," she explained, "most people use the central stairs near the elevators and don't use this set.  I'll avoid being seen as much.  Besides, the room we have set up for using radioactive samples is down at this end," she explained.

The older woman set a brisk pace as she climbed the stairs, clearly used to using stairs on a regular basis.  Emily found herself puffing as she struggled up the last flight of stairs to the fourth floor, and mentally berated herself for not having gotten back into shape more quickly after having her last baby.  They emerged onto a bright hallway and almost immediately turned into small lab with neatly organized benches and bottles of reactants labeled in rows on the shelves.  A young man in a lab coat was working at one of them and he smiled in recognition of Dr. White.

"Mark, this is Dr. Emily Brooks.  She used to work with me and I'm helping her with a research project," the older woman introduced.  "Will you please help her radioactively label this probe?"

"Sure," the young man answered his boss and gestured to the far wall where some lab coats were hanging up, "You'll probably want to borrow one of those."

Emily nodded and then smiled at Mark, holding her hand out shake hands, "Nice to meet you.  It's been a couple of years since I've worked in the lab but if you give me the quick review I'm sure it will come back to me."

Dr. White stepped back out of the room, "I'm going to get a few things from my office and will be back soon.  You're in good hands with Mark," she reassured Emily, who turned back to the lab assistant eager to get to work.

************************

Miss Parker approached the front entrance of MD Anderson hospital slightly ahead of Amanda and was surprised when she felt the young woman's hand pull back on her elbow, "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I think it will be faster if we walk around the building.  As we were driving, I remember seeing the research wing along the back by that cross street," she replied pointing.

Parker tilted her head to the side to look and then glanced over at the stream of people going in and coming out of the entrance, "Okay," she agreed shrugging, "I don't feel like battling the salmon right now."

************************

Meanwhile, Lyle was sitting in front of the bank of video monitors in the security office near the front entrance.  He had been reviewing the recorded images of Jarod entering the building that morning, while Mr. Raines stood silently over the security guard, Andy, who was nervously searching through personnel records to find Dr. White's office.  The monitor to Lyle's side showed the continuous stream of patients, visitors and employees.  He barely glanced at it, but a coat flapping in the wind at the edge of the screen caught his eye.  As he focused on the image, he could tell it was a woman standing just outside of the entrance.  Black boots ended at a bare knee leading up the shapely leg to a short skirt that revealed a trim waist that the wind covered again with the long flapping coat.  Her shoulders and head were out of the range of the camera, but he knew it was her.  He could feel it.  "Damn," he swore softly, "How did she know to come here?"

"Who?" croaked Mr. Raines turning his attention away from the inept security guard.

"I think Miss Parker is here," announced Lyle looking over at his boss.  But when he looked back at the screen, she was gone.  She hadn't come into the entrance at all.  Where had she gone?

************************

Parker and Amanda rounded the corner and entered the Basic Research Building at its entrance that was positioned exactly in the middle of the structure.  A bored security guard gestured for them to sign in, this entrance clearly seldom used by anyone but the researchers themselves.  Amanda politely asked what floor Dr. Barry Stone's labs were located on and he shrugged, pointing to a small marquee that was posted on the wall by the elevators.

Parker impatiently stabbed a long, perfectly manicured finger on the up arrow while Amanda scanned the list of researchers, "Fourth floor," she announced.

Parker looked up at the displays above the two elevators.  One looked like it was frozen on the sixth floor, while the other was working its way down slowly, stopping at every single floor along the way.  She stood with her legs apart and her arms crossed with her fingers tapping impatiently on her elbows.  She felt uneasy, but was unwilling to open herself up to her intuitive feelings.  So she exuded an aura of completely disdainful power.  The persona of the Ice Queen intimidated others, but gave Parker an odd sense of comfort as she pulled her mask on like a warm cloak.

Amanda sensed the change in Parker's mood and was definitely intimidated.  Her resolve to stand up to Parker and help Jarod when the time came wavered and she felt like dashing back out the door they had just come in.

While the one elevator still remained on the sixth floor, the other elevator finally arrived and a full load of passengers streamed out and around Miss Parker who stood in the way like a boulder in a river.  When the elevator finally emptied, Parker took three long strides into it and turned with a swirl of her long coat.  She looked expectantly at Amanda with one eyebrow raised and said, "Well?"

Amanda hesitated, and it was only the hope that she might find information about her mother that forced her to join Miss Parker in the elevator.

************************

Licking his lips nervously, Andy looked up from the computer screen at the old man who had hovered impatiently over his shoulder while he had searched employee records.  The old man was stooped, bald and smelled oddly antiseptic, but worse than his appearance was his threatening presence that was somehow, indefinably, but distinctly, creepy.  "I found her, sir," he announced.  "At first I looked in the medical doctors, but then I checked the researchers.  Dr. White isn't even a Principle Investigator.  She's an Assistant and Lab Manager for Dr. Stone in the Basic Research wing," he explained, lamely trying to defend himself for taking so long to find her.

"Finally," rasped Mr. Raines in disgust.  "Take us to those offices," he commanded, enjoying watching the security guard squirm.  Andy reluctantly rose and led the way down the security hall to the main hallway of the hospital so that they could get to the other side of the building where the Basic research wing was.  The three men trailed after him, but he felt more like they herded him.  He had so anxiously waited for them to arrive at noon, and now he was just as anxious for them to depart.  He regretted having ever called them.  Quick money always had a catch to it and this gun toting trio was definitely a dangerous catch.

************************

Amanda trailed out of the elevator in Miss Parker's wake as she strode up the short hall to a large glass walled office on the corner with the main hallway that ran the length of the building.  A woman in her mid-twenties with obviously colored bright red hair looked up from where she was typing at the word processor and smiled at them, "May I help you?" she asked professionally.

Parker smiled at the woman as she recognized the voice as the secretary she had spoken with on the phone as they had driven into the medical center.  Her demeanor melted as she assumed a casual attitude and leaned one hand down familiarly on the desk, "Why, yes!  I spoke with you earlier about meeting with Dr. Evelyn White.  We are most anxious to speak with her and hope she may have returned from the lunch meeting you mentioned before.  Is she in her office now?" Parker asked in her sweetest voice.

"You're in luck," the secretary returned.  "She just walked by fifteen minutes ago.  She didn't even check in with me like she usually does.  She must be really busy with…"

"Where's her office," Parker interrupted the chatty woman.

The bright red-head blinked in surprise and then pointed down the hall, "Second door on the right," she answered.

Parker gave her a brilliant smile and threw a "Thanks" over her shoulder as she whirled out of the room.

Amanda followed slowly, unsure if she was ready for a meeting with her mother that she had believed to be dead for the last four years.  She watched as Parker entered the office and heard a surprised cry, "Catherine!"  Amanda found herself leaning back on the wall across the hall as she looked in the office and watched the scene enfolding before her.

"No, I'm her daughter," Parker replied.

"You look just like her," Dr. White, the older woman said in amazement.

"People are always telling me that," Parker said with a tired shrug.  "What do you remember about her?" she asked wistfully.

Dr. White sensed a vulnerability and a need to answer truthfully, "She had boundless compassion, a tireless desire to help others and the gentlest personality I've ever met." Miss Parker leaned in toward Dr. White across the desk.  "What do you know about Faith's death?" she asked in a low, choked voice.

Amanda couldn't believe the sadness in Miss Parker's voice.  Who was Faith?  Amanda had never heard of her.  She was rather surprised and a little relieved that she had gone unnoticed so far.  It was interesting to watch her mother talking with Miss Parker.  It was her mother, beyond a doubt, older, thinner and less happy around her eyes, but her mother none-the-less.  And while she was happy that her mother was alive, another part of her was still angry that her mother had let her believe she had died.  An irrational part of her wanted her mother to still be dead.  Amanda had faced the pain of her mother's loss and had gotten on with her life.  The thought of having to go through that all over again sometime in the future when her mother really would die, just made her exasperated.  But now that she actually saw her mother, her anger melted away.  All the times when she had wanted to talk to her mother, all the milestones that she had imagined having without her mother like graduating or getting married could now be fulfilled.  Nothing was more important than family, and telling them you loved them.  Even if the time you could share was short, it was still worth it.  Amanda took a tentative step forward, wanting more than anything to hug her mother and to be hugged back.

As Amanda stepped forward, her mother, Dr. White replied to Miss Parker with a question of her own, "How do you know about Faith?  Your mother didn't want you to suffer over her death."

"She didn't want me to know I had an adopted sister?!" exclaimed Parker.

"Of course, she wanted you to have a happy childhood."

"Ha!  Well, her plan backfired.  I've been told almost my whole life that she committed suicide and I've just recently found out that she was actually murdered.  She left me alone with my father, and he packed me off to boarding schools almost as fast as he could.  I never had a childhood at that funny farm they call The Centre," Parker said bitterly.

"Did you just find out about Faith too?" Dr. White asked.

"No," Miss Parker replied coldly.  "I met her when I was a child.  As a matter of fact, I was with her when she died.  How could you as a nurse leave a child to die all alone?  Why was she kept down in the basement in that weird tent anyway?" demanded Parker.

Amanda froze watching the exchange unnoticed.  Her mother had been a nurse and had been cruel to a child.  That was impossible.  Her mother would never have done that, could she?  She stopped, breathlessly listening for her mother's answer.

Many would have quailed under Parker's withering glare, but Dr. White squared her shoulders and faced Miss Parker down.  "Faith was a very sick girl.  The form of leukemia that she had devastated her immune system and she had to be kept in isolation for her own protection.  That "tent" was a positive pressure air system to maintain clean, filtered air around her.  When ever I was assigned to her, I treated her gently and whole heartedly.  I didn't have a choice where I was ordered to serve as a nurse.  You may not know it, but there were several other children that were also part of that project to find a cure.  I may have had other duties elsewhere."

"I have read the reports, and all those other children recovered while Faith only got worse," retorted Parker.  "Two of the other children started on the same regimen as Faith, but their medications were changed and they improved.  Why didn't you change hers too?"

"I wasn't the doctor in charge!" protested Dr. White.  "I've tried to make up for that fact in the years since then.  I'm here working in research even now."  She gestured around the small office, turning her head as she did so and froze as her glance finally fell on the hallway outside of the office and on her own daughter standing quietly in the middle of it, staring wide eyed back at her.  "A-A-Amanda?" Dr. White asked in a shaky voice.

"Mom!" Amanda finally exclaimed and flung herself forward into her mother's arms as tears streamed down both of their eyes.

"Oh, Amanda, I didn't want you to find me!  I'm so sorry, baby.  It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in leaving you and your father, but please believe me when I say I was trying to protect you.  I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry…" the older woman repeated.

"It's alright, Mom.  You're alright.  I'm so glad to see you again.  I forgive you.  You're my mom.  I love you," Amanda declared.

"I love you too, Amanda," Dr. White said while giving her a big hug.  Then pushing Amanda back a little she smiled through her tears, "Let me see you better…you've grown into such a lovely young woman.  I'm so proud of you."

"Please, Mom, I really need to know, why did you leave?  Why did you make us think you were dead?" pleaded Amanda.

"Honey, there are some things that you don't know about me.  I never even told your father all the truth.  I had a very different life before I met him, and I had thought I had left it all behind me.  You see, I've changed my name two times now, trying to live my life away from that place."

"That place?" Amanda repeated.

"The Centre," answered Miss Parker.  The other two women turned to the almost forgotten third person in the room.  Parker had watched the whole exchange quietly, almost jealously wishing she could be reunited with her own mother.

Dr. White nodded in agreement, "Yes, it was my first job out of nursing school.  I thought I had found the ideal position—high paying, working at the forefront of modern science.  I thought I was really going to help make a difference in the world," she recalled wistfully.  "But after I had been there over a year, I began to notice inconsistencies in how business was run there.  But I ignored that when I was assigned to work on the Leukogenesis project.  It was an important investigation in how the blood system undergoes differentiation into all the different blood types.  The paper that came out of that study is still referenced today, but I wasn't prepared for the emotional impact."

She took a shaky breath and looked Miss Parker in the eyes, "I was lucky enough to meet your mother and feel her passion for helping others.  And I was unlucky enough to meet one of the doctors who ran the project."

"Raines," bit out Parker in disgust, her eyes flashing in anger.

Dr. White nodded in agreement, "He was so hypocritical the way he talked about curing cancer simultaneously chain smoking cigarettes.  He seemed, I don't know how to describe it, oily somehow."  She paused, taking a deep breath and looked at her daughter, "I don't have any proof but I know he's behind my attack."

"You were attacked!" Amanda exclaimed.

"I had had a feeling that I was being watched for a week, so I was prepared when a large, black sedan ran my car off the road into the river.  I swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, letting the flow of the river carry me as far as possible so they wouldn't see me scramble out on the bank.  I was scared."  She reached out and stroked her daughter's cheek, "Not so much for me, but for you and your Dad.  I was afraid that they would hurt you trying to get to me, so I thought it best to disappear again and let them think they had succeeded."

"Again?" Amanda wondered.

"Yes, I changed my name right after I quit and left The Centre in 1970.  I got on with my life, got married, had you.  It had been over twenty years.  I didn't think it would matter any more," she trailed off sadly.

"That was right after my mother's death," Parker added.

"I left because of her death," Dr. White admitted.  "I never believed she killed herself.  After Faith died, she had little need for the Centre or its resources.  She secretly told me that she was going to leave and take her daughter and several other children that she knew about at the Centre with her.  She would never have given up by committing suicide.  But after her death I remembered an incident that made me suspicious.  The month before, she had been admitted to the hospital wing for some minor surgery to remove a mole.  She asked for me to be present, and I was until Dr. Raines came in.  He ordered me to fetch Catherine another blanket as the room was so cold.  She nodded for me to go, but while I was out in the hall, another nurse came running up saying they needed help for an emergency with one of the children on the floor below.  When we got there, everything was under control, and my help wasn't really needed.  So I returned to Catherine's room and she was sleeping.  The other doctor said she had asked for something for the pain, but really it was only minor surgery.  A local anesthetic was all she needed.  I was suspicious, but when Catherine woke up, she insisted that she was fine.  I don't know exactly what, but Raines did something to her that day.  After her death I began to do a little investigating.  Raines came to me and threatened me in no uncertain terms to stop asking questions, because I was going to upset the family and ruin her memory.  I just had a gut feeling that he knew more than he was telling and that he had had a hand in her death as well.  I don't know, I guess I gave him a look, because he glared back at me with such a cold expression, it still gives me chills to remember it.  I left that night and never looked back," Dr. White finished her explanation.

"But why would he still be after you, if all you did was give him a look?" asked Miss Parker curiously.

"Because I found something.  I small disc, but I've never seen what was on it.  I've never been able to find a machine that played it.  It's funny, at the time it was totally unique, but now I would have called it a CD."

"You have a DSA disc from the time of my mother's death?" Parker asked in amazement.

"DSA?  Is that what it's called?" Dr. White rejoined.

"Where is it?" demanded Parker.

"Actually, it's locked up here in the lab's small safe," she admitted  "It's down the hall.  Come this way," and she led them out of her office.

***********************

Lyle kept looking over shoulder and scanning rooms as they walked down the long hallway, not only on the look out for Jarod, but also for Miss Parker.  He wanted to lengthen his stride and move faster, but Raines was not capable of it.  He shot a sideways glance at the older man as he wheezed along, dragging his oxygen tank behind him.  Just why he had insisted on coming along eluded Lyle.

Andy, the security guard, deferentially led the way, wisely choosing not to say anything to further antagonize the men who followed him.  He had taken them up a set of elevators in the main clinic building and they were walking down the hall that led to a glass walled bridge that led to the research building.  He had felt it would be wiser to walk on the fourth floor where there would be less people walking around then on the first floor.  As they came closer to the intersection of the main hallway in the research building, he saw a short red haired woman in a lab coat walking along the hall glance their way.  Her eyes widened, but then she casually turned the corner away from them and disappeared down the back hallway.  Ordinarily, he would have checked, but she was wearing a lab coat.  He must have imagined the look in her eyes.  Andy had too many other things on his mind to follow through.

***********************

Emily turned the corner and leaned against the wall for a moment in panic.  God! She hoped she had managed to look innocent.  She had intended to get her friend, Dr. White, but she didn't see how she could get to her before the men did.  She had recognized one of them.  The old man was hunched but she knew she had seen him on one of the DSA's that she had watched the day before.  These men had to be from the Centre, and she had to warn Jarod.

She walked quickly down the back hallway until she got to an equipment room that had doors to both hallways.  She threaded her way through the freezers and centrifuges until she reached the other side and peeked out the door down the hall.  Two of the men were now standing in front of the office and one had gone inside.  She took a breath, then forcing herself to walk down the middle of the hall, she took steady steps away from them and towards the stairwell at the end of the hall.  When she reached the door, she risked a sideways glance down the hall and their backs were still turned.  She opened the stairwell door, stepped through and closed the door quietly.  Then the panic she had been stifling down the hallway broke through.  She flew down the four flights of stairs taking them two at a time, burst out of the basement door into the loading dock, and raced across the pavement to the building that they had left Jarod in.  He would know what to do, she silently reassured herself.  He had to.


	15. Showdown

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Fifteen:  Showdown

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Friday, 5 PM

Miss Parker followed Dr. White and her daughter, Amanda, into a large research lab.  The normally bustling lab was quiet since it was the end of the day on a Friday, and the researchers had gone off to have their usual TGIF beers.  Dr. White led them to a small room in one corner that was lined with shelves full of chemicals.  Down against the floor was a small safe bolted to the back wall.  She knelt in front of it and quickly dialed a combination to open the safe.

"We keep some particularly expensive and dangerous reagents in here," she explained as she reached into the back and withdrew a small, white envelope.  "I put this in the back for safe keeping a long time ago."  Dr. White stood and handed the envelope to Parker.  "I never have been able to access the data on this disc.  I hope you can find it useful."

Parker slid a long fingernail along the envelope seal and looked in at the small silver DSA disc reflecting light with little rainbows.  She felt both a thrill and a dread of anticipation of seeing the images stored on the unique recording device.  What information would she learn about Faith's death, or perhaps her mother's?  But her thoughts were interrupted by Lyle's snide voice.

"Come a long way to see a doctor, haven't you, Sis?"

************************

Emily ran into the Clinical Research Building almost forgetting that she carried a small lead pig with the recently radioactively tagged sample in her hand.  The bored guard at the door did not, "What are you bringing in here?" he demanded.

Emily forced herself to calm down and look the man in the eye, "I'm bringing this sample back as directed by Dr. White.  I left with her less than an hour ago, remember?"

He stared at her face and really couldn't remember it, but he did remember the red hair, "Okay," he relaxed back into his boredom.

Emily strode down the hallway, stopping first in the lab to give the sample to the technician that had been assisting them, then to strip off her gloves and wash her hands.

Finally, she hurried on her mission to get Jarod, worry for her friend, Dr. White, spreading through her stomach like ice.

************************

Parker looked down at Dr. White's startled face and clenched her teeth.  Turning slowly, she tried to slip the envelope and its disc into her coat pocket surreptitiously, simultaneously gesturing with her other hand to try to distract attention from her actions.  "Who gave you permission to follow me again," she snarled back as she turned, then froze as a new voice answered.

"I did, Miss Parker.  And weren't you ordered NOT to travel alone?" demanded Raines in his grating voice.

"Broots came with me," she defended herself.

"Where is your techno-dweeb?" asked Lyle looking around the room and settling on giving Amanda an appreciative and leering look.

The look didn't escape Parker's notice and she stepped between he and Amanda to protect the young woman.  She purposefully ignored his question and went on the offense herself, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"We're following up on a reported sighting of Jarod," replied Raines as he stepped up to the door of the small chemical room, effectively trapping the three women inside.  "Is this the Dr. White that has been abetting him?"  he took a rattling breath and his eyes narrowed.  Dr. White slowly stood up from her crouched position and stood defiantly with straight shoulders staring back at Raines.  "Or should I say, Nurse Black," he growled.

"Dr. Raines," she acknowledged with ice in her own voice.

Lyle stared in surprise at the older woman as she faced them.  No one ever stood up to Mr. Raines around the Centre.  Perhaps this was the reason Raines had insisted on accompanying him on this trip.  He looked over at Raines and was surprised at the look of anger which the bent man radiated.

"I'm not a young woman that you can easily intimidate any more, Doctor," stated Dr. White radiating her own anger.  "I demand that you leave me and my family alone."

"You left under false pretenses and stole Centre property," accused Raines.

"You tried to have me killed!" she exclaimed.

"No one can leave the Centre with information like that," he hissed and then noticed Miss Parker shift on her feet, "without ascertaining their true loyalties first," he added.  He was aware of her arrangement with her father, Mr. Parker, the Chairman of the Centre, that she would be allowed to leave once she returned their prize Pretender Jarod to the Centre.  He didn't want her to know that he didn't plan to let that happen.  If she was ordinary, then he wouldn't have disapproved of the plan, but he knew that there were more uses for her than her father wanted to allow.  He smiled sickly at Parker, mentally gloating at the things that he would do once he had both the Pretender and her, with her latent Inner Sense, together.  That's when he would seize power.  But until then, he'd bide his time and slowly build his army of sweepers loyal only to him.  He faced Parker and stared her down, "Just where do your loyalties lie, Miss Parker?" he asked threateningly, and held out his hand.  "What did you put into your pocket?"

***********************

Emily found Jarod where she had left him, asleep on the small couch, his long legs hung over the side and onto a lamp table.  She shook the foot closest to her and called his name, "Jarod, Jarod.  Wake up."

Jarod snapped awake instantly, the tone in her voice told him more than any words she might have said.  He swung his legs down and simultaneously pushed up with his good arm to a sitting position on the couch.  He was relieved that his head stayed clear, but didn't push his luck and stand right away.  "Tell me," he ordered.

"I saw some men.  I recognized one from your videos.  He was older, but it was definitely him."

"Sydney?" asked Jarod hopefully.

"No.  You told me about him.  I don't know this one's name.  I just saw him in the background a few times."

"What did he look like?" demanded Jarod.

"Bald, stooped, pulling an oxygen tank behind him," she started.

"Raines," growled Jarod.  "What is he doing here?  He never chases after me?  Unless, he's chasing after her…"

Emily misunderstood Jarod's concern, "He's after Dr. White.  We have to help her!"

"Not we, I'm going to help."

"But, Jarod, I want to help too."

"I know, but you have children at home to worry about," he reminded her.  "You can be a bigger help if you take care of them.  Look, there are still a few things to finish here for the analysis right?"  She nodded silently.  "And someone has to come back tomorrow to develop the films and analyze the results right?"  She nodded again.  "Then that's what you're going to do, and I will check on Dr. White."

"But how will you get back to my house?" she persisted.

"I can hide in this hospital complex very easily," he smiled mischievously.  "I will meet you tomorrow morning when you come back for the results, okay?"

"Okay," Emily mumbled looking unhappy, but resigned.  She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, "Just be careful."

He squeezed back and nodded, "Give me that lab coat.  It will help me blend in better.  I'll see you tomorrow morning at ten, okay?"  Then he gingerly stood to his feet and nodded his head lightly with a pleased smile, "Hey, the dizziness is gone."

She took off the lab coat and handed it to him.  Whereas it had hung to her calves, it now ended at his knees.  As he pulled it on, his whole demeanor changed and he somehow looked so much more nerdy.  Suddenly, she appreciated what it meant to be a Pretender, and she gasped lightly.  He laid a hand on her shoulder and his warm brown eyes shone on her, "It'll be alright.  I promise," and then he walked out of the room.

***********************

Parker glared back, mad at herself that she hadn't gotten away with hiding the envelope earlier.  She was tempted to argue, but she glanced back behind Raines to where Lyle stood backup and Willie the sweeper even more obviously held a gun, ready to fire if ordered.  She didn't think she was going to get to see the DSA, but she was at least going to use it to help Dr. White and her daughter Amanda.  "You know this woman," she jerked her head toward Dr. White, "has never had the means to view this DSA," she patted her pocket.  "I'll just take it home to Daddy, and make sure it's returned safely."

"Unacceptable," he rasped back.

"You agree to leave this woman and her family alone and I'll give it to you now," Parker offered knowing she had him.

"I could just take it," he threatened.

"We don't want to make a scene here in such a public place do we?" asked Parker in her saccharin voice.

Dr. White had watched the exchange and had an appreciation for the strength of character Parker had had to develop to survive in the Centre.  "William, it has been over twenty years," she said getting his attention, "I have never acted against the Centre in all that time.  I have only tried to live my own life and have a family of my own.  Surely the data on that old computer disc is so old now the research has been superseded."

Her ignorance in thinking the DSA was a computer disc made Raines realize the danger of making too big a fuss over it.  He could feel Lyle's growing suspicion behind his back and he could see Parker's desperation in her eyes even though she fought to hide it.  They were both smart and ambitious and knew the scenes captured long ago were a source of power.  A source of power over him.  He drew a long breath of oxygen and shrugged, "You are accidental.  We're really here to recapture the escaped Centre inmate, Jarod.  What did you do to help him?"

"Nothing," Dr. White began.

"You were seen…" Raines interrupted.

"He came to help me," she interrupted in turn, stressing the word, 'me'.  She looked over at Parker and quickly concluded she needed to protect her if only for the memory of her mother, Catherine Parker.  "Jarod reunited me with my daughter.  He reminded me that being with family is the most important thing," and she reached over and squeezed her daughter's hand.

Amanda smiled wanly over at her mother, still worried about how this confrontation was going to work out.

**********************

Jarod walked around the building to the entrance to the Basic Research Building just as a boisterous group of researchers were returning from their happy hour.  He easily slid in among the group and passed into the building without raising the guard's attention and then rode up the elevator with some of them.  "Excuse me," he asked a young man, "I'm coming over from Clinic, could you tell me which floor Dr. White has her office?"

"I don't know," the young man replied, "If you go back downstairs, there's a marquee by the elevators."

"Oh, don't bother," said another young man, "I work in her lab.  We're on the fourth floor.  I'll walk you to her office," he offered.

"Thanks," Jarod beamed at the young man.  "Are you a graduate student?"

"Yes, only another 3 years of indentured servitude to go," he joked.

The elevator stopped at four and they got off, saying goodbye to the other young man who was continuing up to the sixth floor.  The graduate student walked with Jarod to the cross hall and gestured to her office, "That's hers.  You might need to leave a note or something.  She gets around a lot since she's the lab manager.  I gotta go, I have a gel that's about to finish," he apologized and walked quickly down the corridor.

Jarod stood outside the small office for only a moment, then he slid up against the wall and edged quietly up to the first lab door, peeking carefully around the corner.  He checked back over his shoulder, and then repeated the process up to the next door.  This time when he peeked in, he dropped to a crouch and listened intently.  He wasn't really sure what he was going to do, but he knew he had the element of surprise in his favor.

************************

"So where is he now?" demanded Lyle, trying to get back in control of his quickly failing expedition.

Dr. White shrugged looking over at Parker, silently willing her to go along, "As I told her, he left around lunch time.  Said it was best if I didn't know where he was going."

Parker nodded going along, pleased that Dr. White was astute enough not to tell Raines that she was the one to have reunited Dr. White and her daughter.  She just hoped Amanda would keep her mouth shut.  "It's Jarod's MO.  Why he has such a thing for family, I'll never know," she said in disgust giving Lyle a glare.  She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and waved toward the door with it, "So do we have a deal?  Shall we go now and leave these two women alone with their reunion?"

Raines nodded and backed out of the door.  Willie slipped his gun back into his holster and backed up.  Lyle turned and realized that the security guard who had led them there had slipped away unnoticed.  Just as well, Lyle thought smugly, now I can keep the 'reward'.

Miss Parker looked regally over at Amanda and her mother and gave the barest hint of a smile as she nodded goodbye to them.  She took one large step towards Raines and stared directly at him as she slapped the envelope containing the DSA disc into his outstretched hand.  Then she pushed between the other two men and strode out of the room with her long coat rippling behind her.

"Let's go," rasped Raines as he stuck the envelope in his pocket and took hold of the handle of his oxygen tank and he went squeaking off behind Miss Parker.  Lyle gave the two women one of his most charming smiles and a slight bow, but the effect was ruined by his cold eyes.  Then he and Willie trailed after Raines.

"Oh, mother!" Amanda finally spoke and burst into tears.  Her mother pulled her into a hug and patted her back comfortingly as she took a long shuddering breath herself.

***********************

Jarod realized the group was breaking up and that Dr. White was being left unharmed.  He wasn't sure exactly what happened, but he knew that Miss Parker had managed to save the day.  He grinned with pride in her.  He knew there was still warmth under her icy façade.  He slunk back along the wall, quietly entered the first room he had looked in and folded himself around a dark corner under a desk to wait for his pursuers to leave.  He listened as their footsteps echoed down the hallway, Miss Parker's distinctive heels clearly out of step with the rest of the men.

***********************

Parker silently fumed as she rode down the elevator with Raines, Lyle and Willie.  She kept her arms crossed in front of her and her back straight exuding her subzero persona.  They all stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall, Parker and Lyle now trailing Raines and his bodyguard.  As usual, Lyle wouldn't leave her alone.  "So, Parker, I thought you called in sick."

"The miracles of Theraflu," she quipped.  "When I heard we had a lead on Jarod, I sacrificed my own health to do my job," she insisted for Raines' benefit.  He was doing his best to ignore the two squabbling twins.

"What lead did you get?" asked Lyle suspiciously, afraid that one of his own men betrayed him.

She finally deigned to look his way, "From the 'garbage' as you called it, from Jarod's last lair.  We concluded that he would be coming here.  He was trying to help this family, and he needed medical help.  It was logical.  Sir," she sped up to walk by Raines, "Lyle may very well have scared Jarod away.  I insist you order him to work on other projects and stop ruining the work that I was given…"  She deliberately left the end of the sentence hanging so he would be forced to fill in the ending himself, 'by my father.'  Effectively reminding him, that she still had one trump card over him.

"Very well, Miss Parker," Raines said in exasperation.  "You are in charge of the recapture of Jarod.  For the time being.  Results are expected," he threatened.

By this time they had walked outside and stopped by the large town car parked in the handicap zone.  The brewing storm seemed to match all of their tempers, as the wind swirled around them.  Willie opened the rear door for Mr. Raines and helped lift his oxygen tank inside.  Lyle opened the front passenger door and looked on as Miss Parker nodded obsequiously to the older man.

"Oh my," she exclaimed, "I've almost forgotten Broots!"  She smiled wickedly at Lyle, and he knew she had never forgotten, but had conveniently sent them on their way.  "I'll see you back at the Centre," she called almost gaily as she strode back into the hospital.  Lyle climbed into the car granting her the victory, this time.

************************

Jarod walked into the lab cautiously and was pleased to see it empty except for Dr. White and Amanda.  "Are you both alright?" he asked quietly.

"Jarod!" Amanda exclaimed and ran toward him, fresh tears flowing down her face.

"Shhhh!" both he and her mother scolded at the same time.

"I'm sorry," Amanda whispered as she threw her arms around his neck in a hug.  "I've been so worried, especially Miss Parker said she shot you."

"Yeah, ow, she did," replied Jarod uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry," repeated Amanda as she let go, "You were right.  You did help me find my mother.  Thank you, Jarod."

"Yes, thank you.  You were right.  I'm not going to throw away this chance to be with the family I love," added Dr. White.

"Your welcome," Jarod said with embarrassment, "um, it sounds like Miss Parker had a hand in this miracle too."

"She is so amazing," Amanda gushed, "Well, she can be a little scary sometimes, but having seen these other creeps she has to deal with, I see why she's so tough, I mean…"

"Yes," interrupted Dr. White, "Dr. Raines was still mad at me after all these years, but she traded him a small disc for my freedom.  I know she wanted to see what was on it herself, but she traded it for us.  I just hope he honors his promise."

"Well, I can help you there," offered Jarod.  "Let's go to your office and I'll set you up a secure email address so you can get a message to me if you need to."

************************

Parker rode back up the elevator to the fourth floor.  She didn't have to.  Really, she should be going to collect Broots and get out of town, but she wanted to make sure Amanda was alright.  The young woman had gotten under her skin and she wanted to make sure that both she and her rediscovered mother were going to be alright.  She turned the corner to walk to Dr. White's office and found the door closed leaving only a crack.  She leaned against it and over the sound of a clicking keyboard, heard Amanda's voice describing how they had laid out the research papers on the floor of Jarod's apartment to find her mother.  Thinking it would be uncomfortable to open the door as she was being praised, Parker knocked and called, "Amanda."

Immediately, the sound of typing stopped and Amanda opened the door partially, blocking the view inside as she replied in surprise, "Miss Parker!  What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to make sure you were going to be alright.  Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," said Amanda as Parker pushed the door open to reveal Dr. White standing by the second chair in front of her desk.  Parker narrowed her eyes, and nowhere near the computer keyboard behind the desk she realized.

"Thank you again," Dr. White rushed forward to shake her hand.  "My daughter was just telling me about your deductive skills in finding out my new name."

Parker inhaled deeply and felt the tension in the room.  The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she felt a thrill of adrenaline course through her.  He was here.

"Jar-rod," she called out like an old game of hide and seek, holding her arms akimbo on her hips.

Slowly he rose from behind the desk, and stared expectantly at her, his eyes flicking only once to search behind her and to know that she was alone.  "Miss Parker," he acknowledged in his rich deep voice, "temporary truce," he requested in their old manner from childhood.

She inclined her head slightly and he leaned back over the keyboard, blocking her view as he typed furiously.  She took another step in the room to the desk and leaned over to grab a pen and scrawl a number on a post-it pad, "Here," she handed it to Dr. White.  "Call me if you have any more problems with Raines.  I'll try to make sure he honors our bargain."

Jarod stepped out from behind the desk and was now closer to the door than she was.  "I'll be doing the same thing," he offered to Dr. White.

"Well, Wonderboy?" drawled Parker.  "You run and I chase."

Jarod bolted for the door and raced down the corridor.

Parker took one step forward and found herself lying on the floor looking up at Amanda who had just tripped her.  "I can't let you hurt him again," Amanda said forcefully.

Parker picked herself up and rubbed her bruised knee.  She looked Amanda in the eye and finally understood the situation herself as she explained, "If I don't chase him, someone else will and they will hurt him when they catch him."  And what she thought but didn't say was, and I'll be sure to never catch him.

So do you all want more?  Or should I stop here?


	16. Deja Vu

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Sixteen:  Deja vu

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Friday, 6 PM

Parker stood just outside the doors of the building.  Night had fallen completely as the thick storm clouds had obscured any evening twilight.  A light rain had begun to fall and the sound of thunder promised more.  She hesitated even though she knew exactly which way to go to return to her hotel.  The voices whispered in her head.  More and more she had begun to hear them.  Ordinarily she ignored them, or the bustle of everyone around her overwhelmed them, but tonight she felt especially alone and so they sounded louder.  One in particular was quite insistent.  'That way…he went that way…' it seemed to say to her.  She didn't have to question who 'he' was.  She had just seen him.  She felt a double dose of guilt for not having apologized for having shot him.  She sighed.  She was supposed to wait for him to call her.  In the middle of the night, of course.  That was how they played this game after all.  But tonight she needed more.  She needed to know just what he thought of her, because she wasn't sure what to think of him anymore.  She pulled her coat closer around her, stepped out into the rain, and walked down the street away from her hotel.

***********************

Jarod walked along the road no longer in a hurry.  He had burst out of the building at a dead run, but now he knew she wasn't after him anymore.  That wasn't the way they played the game.  He knew he had to call her sometime later.  He should wait until he knew she was back in Blue Cove and had to fight the impulse to pull his cell phone out and just call her now.  Her behavior had him mystified.  She had made a point of looking after the young woman Amanda.  She had actually helped reunite Amanda and her mother.  This was hardly the tough Miss Parker that she tried to project.  He smiled to himself, just when he thought he had her figured out, she surprised him.  He loved that about her, most people were just too simple and predictable.

A gust of wind brought a pattering of heavier raindrops.  The trees had sheltered him from the light rain, but he was beginning to get wet now.  He pulled the lab coat around him from the growing chill and stopped to lean up against a tree.  He looked up at the sky enjoying the show Mother Nature was putting on.  Lightening raced through the clouds and thunder rippled after it as the storm grew closer.  A steady wind brought a decidedly cooler temperature with it and occasional burst of wind lashed the tree limbs like mad marionettes.  He loved it.  As a child, sheltered in the concrete, subterranean basements of the Centre with no access to even a window, he had tried to imagine storms that he read about.  Reality was so much more chaotic, so much more dangerous.  So much like her.

*********************

Parker walked along the same road oblivious to the storm.  It seemed the perfect backdrop to her conflicted emotions.  She knew what she should do, what was expected of her and what she must do in order to survive, but it was not what she wanted to do.  What she wanted…she was afraid to even voice it to herself.  Instead, she let the wind blow her down the street, the elements of Nature itself were in harmony with the voices in her head and she let them pull her along like a current in a stream.

Suddenly, she saw him.  He was leaning against a tree, his head upturned to the storm letting the rain fall in his face unheeded.  She might have walked by except the white lab coat reflected the spot of light from a street lamp and made him stand out against the dark tree trunks.  His old-fashioned hairdo and his mustache could have made him look odd, but out here in the storm he looked even more handsome.  He looked like the archetypical hero, unafraid of even the elements.  She found herself drawn forward like a moth to a flame.

Without even thinking she began to run toward him.

*********************

Jarod heard the sound of her boots slapping the wet pavement and jerked his head to the side as he tried to make out her figure in the increasingly heavy rain.  He couldn't really make out her face, but he knew it was her.  For a moment he hesitated wondering whether he was simply imagining her, but a burst of lightening lit the scene like day for an instant and he could see her dark hair flying out around her face and her lips pursed the way she always did when she chased him.

Without even thinking he began to run away from her.

As he ran, the lab coat flapped around his legs and he realized that the white made him easy to track.  He ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder as he shrugged the coat off and threw it to the side.  He had reached the end of the quiet delivery access road and was forced to stop as he stood facing a major thoroughfare.  Although the bulk of the evening rush hour was over, there was still plenty of traffic and crossing without a light was going to be hard.  He glanced back over his shoulder at Parker barreling down on him, and looked back desperately at the road.  He spied a lucky break in the traffic as a large truck on the opposite side moved sedately along trapping the speedy little cars behind its bulk.  He dashed out in front of a blue sedan on his side of the road and out to the center median.  He paused a moment as a small white car whizzed by, its horn blaring and then he ran out in front of the truck and into a large wooded park.

Parker skidded to a stop as the horn blared, watching breathlessly as Jarod sprinted in front of the truck and into the park.  Once he was out of the headlights of the cars, he all but disappeared in the curtain of rain.  She bent down and picked up the white lab coat, only to throw it down angrily.  She paced along the gutter waiting for the traffic to slow until finally the light far down at the corner held back the flow temporarily and she was able to sprint across the road.  She jogged in the pouring rain until she came to another quiet cross street.  She could just make out the street sign, Golf Course Dr.  She leaned on the cold, metal pole for a moment deciding whether she should just turn around and go back to her hotel and get warm and dry.  But the voices drove her on and she ran blindly into the dark park following him not with her eyes, but with her heart.

Jarod was panicked.  There hadn't been any sweepers with her back at Dr. White's office.  She had clearly acknowledged the temporary truce, so what had happened?  Had he been seen by Lyle or Raines and had they sent her after him again?  Who else was chasing after him with her?  As he reached a rise in the municipal golf course, he slid to a stop on the wet grass and turned, panting, to look back over his shoulder.  He could see the traffic moving far off at the edge of the park, but it was dark under the trees.  On the other side of the park road, he could make out the buildings of the zoo behind a high fence that he had already dismissed as being unable to scale with his hurt shoulder.  His plan was to lose his pursuers in the park and circle around back to the medical center where he could get lost in the many hospitals and buildings there.  Not to mention, the temperature was dropping fast as the cold front barreled over the city.  He needed to find shelter and hopefully some dry clothes soon.

He shivered as he stared out into the darkness trying to detect human movement under the trees.  The problem was that strong gusts of wind were swirling leaves all around and the tops of the trees were swaying and creaking as they were lashed in the wind and rain.  Then a wind gust over fifty miles an hour literally blew him over and pea sized hail began to pellet his head and shoulders.  This storm was changing quickly from being simply uncomfortable to out-right dangerous.

He couldn't afford to stop on this rise.  He needed to get down out of the wind at least, maybe under a tree so its limbs would block the some of the hail.  He slid on his backside down the hill, gaining a layer of thick, claylike mud on his already soaked pants.  As he got up to try and run, his pants felt heavy and now it was hard to bend his knees, "Perfect," he muttered as he struggled on.

Parker found herself growing angry at Jarod.  Why was he running away when it was just her?  She really wanted to talk to him.  Why did he always get to choose the time to talk?  She was getting soaked from this rain and it was starting to get cold.  A huge gust of wind blew her into a stand of small pine trees and she stumbled, scraping her legs on their sharp needles as she tried to catch herself.  Then hail began to drum on her head in time with a throbbing headache.  "Perfect," she muttered as she struggled on.

By a quirk of fate, Parker found herself on top of the rise that Jarod had just left.  She wanted to get a farther view, but found the swirling debris from the storm just as hard to peer through.  Looking down she saw the unmistakable sign of his recent slide down the slope and she grinned almost wickedly, knowing she was close.  "JAROD!" she called, trying to throw her voice over the fury of the storm.

Was it a trick of the wind?  Jarod thought he'd heard his name called.  He came to a stop leaning over on his knees, trying to catch his breath.  His usual stamina was gone.  Between his gunshot wound, his recent infection and fever, and having his blood drawn that morning, he was weak and fading fast.  He might have to let himself be caught now and save his remaining strength to escape later.  He looked back towards the rise he had just left and saw her figure silhouetted against the roiling clouds.

Suddenly, the air itself was ripped apart.  A blinding flash of lightening completed the circuit from clouds to ground via the live oak towering just above Parker.  The sound of thunder simultaneously deafened Jarod and he watched in horror as a huge limb ripped away from the tree's trunk and descended with gravity's merciless force onto Parker.  The pounding rain seemed almost quiet after the thunder vibrated away from its source.  After the daylight-like brilliance, his eyes had difficulty adjusting to the dark, and Jarod could feel his hairs on his arms and back of his neck still standing on end from the electric field that had discharged.  "PARKER!" he cried out desperately.

He ran back toward the rise and saw the huge tree limb sprawling diagonally from the top to the bottom and Parker no where in sight.  Forgetting his own hurt shoulder, Jarod broke smaller branches and shoved his way in and under the big limb.  Crawling under it, he felt blindly around until he touched her hand.  "Parker!" he cried again as he grasped her cold hand and pulled her towards him.  Luckily, she wasn't pinned under as the smaller branches at the end held the limb up and kept the broken, jagged end on the top of the rise.  Jarod clawed at the mud trying to make a deeper hole so he could pull her out from under the limb.  Adrenaline powered his efforts as he backed out, pushing smaller branches back out of his way with his broad back and pulling her out with his one good arm.  He finally got the two of them out and down at the base of the rise.  The wind was blocked but the rain poured down on them washing away some of the mud.

He snapped into paramedic mode.  Kneeling next to her, he tilted her head back and checking for breathing.  Leaning over, he protected her head from the rain and hovered his cheek over her face to feel her breath while looking for the rise and fall of her chest.  As he felt the soft, warm puff of air on his cheek, he took a shuddering gasp of air himself, not realizing he had been holding his own breath.  He quickly felt over her limbs determining that she hadn't broken any bones, but discovered a gash above her ear that was quickly swelling.  He pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around her head to slow the bleeding and leaned back on his heels to look down on her.  She was unconscious and in danger of going into shock.  The pouring rain and steadily decreasing temperature were putting them both in danger and he needed to find shelter now.

Standing, he looked back at the lights glowing from the top floors of the nearby hospitals over the tops of the trees.  Medical help was so close and yet so far away.  He couldn't leave her here in the rain to get help, and he couldn't carry her all the way out either.  He looked down at his own bare chest and the blood soaked bandage on his shoulder, suddenly realizing the intense pain he had thus far ignored from having pulled out a number of the stitches so recently used to close his gunshot wound.

Nature answered his dilemma with another burst of lightening and he noticed a small, shed just a short distance away closer to the golf course access road.  Nodding to himself, he ignored the pain in his shoulder and used both arms to drag Parker over to the fallen limb.  He hefted her to a standing position, leaning her precariously against the limb and whirled around to catch her on his back as she slumped back over.  Bending his knees, he tossed her up slightly into a fireman's carry, adjusting her weight so it fell mostly on his good shoulder, her head lolling against his bandage.  Lightening flashed again and thunder rumbled as he sloshed through the rain towards the shed.

Although, she wasn't particularly heavy, he found himself stumbling to a halt when they reached the shed, his energy almost all gone.  He let her slide off his back against the wall, allowing her to slump to the ground.  He rattled the locked door and then with a burst of anger, kicked the door open.  The shed housed a riding mower, as well as other gardening equipment stacked neatly around the edges.  There wasn't enough room for the two of them too, unless he could move the mower.  Setting the gears into neutral, he got around behind the machine and with a last burst of energy pushed it out off the shed and into the rain.  Panting heavily, he stood in a daze in the doorway under the shed relieved to finally be out of the rain.  Guiltily, he spied Parker still getting drenched and stepped back out to pull her in with him.  Kicking the door closed he slowly collapsed against it, sliding to a sitting position with Parker leaning against his chest, her legs stretched out between his own.  He wrapped his arms around her, bent his head down on the top of hers and closed his eyes with exhaustion.

It was his body's own shivering that woke him up.  Jarod had no idea how long he had slept, but it couldn't have been long as the thunder only sounded a couple miles away now.  The rain poured down steadily outside and the growing cold combined with their soaking clothes had chilled both he and Parker.  He lay her on her side carefully and scooted around to feel around the shed.  His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he could make out various gardening tools along the wall.  As he felt along the shelves, his hand hit a stack of folded fabric.  Pulling it out, he shook out a large canvas, paint cloth.  Dusty and bespattered with dried paint, it was never-the-less a godsend.  He pulled it over his shivering shoulders, then stepped on the heels of his shoes to pull his feet out and then yank off his soaked socks.  He undid his belt and pulled off his muddy pants, leaving on only his briefs.  He felt his way back to Parker and quickly undressed her as well, trying not to notice how silky her skin was and keep his mind on their survival.  He untied his shirt from around her head and was glad to see the bleeding had stopped.  He covered her with the canvas, while he quickly draped their clothes around the shelves to hopefully drip dry.  Shivering, he crawled under the canvas with her and rolled her up against him, her head cushioned on his good shoulder, the hurt side up.  He brushed her hair back from her face with his own hurt arm and then pulled the canvas up around them tightly.  Then finally giving in, he fell asleep oblivious to the hard concrete floor.

************************

Parker woke up slowly.  Part of her was warm and cushioned, but her back was cold and her left arm was trapped under her on a hard surface.  She rolled up on the warm surface, pushing up with her trapped arm and snuggling her cheek onto the warm fuzzy surface that pillowed her.  At first she smelled only a musky smell that made her feel safe, but slowly she grew aware of the scents of blood and sweat, with an overcast of what could only be called wet dog.  Then she not only heard, but also felt the steady rhythm of a heart beating and its rhythm made her aware of her own heart beat throbbing in time with a headache.  Gingerly, she reached a hand up to the side of her head and couldn't help moaning when she touched the tender wound, noticing that her hair was matted with dried blood.  Then she realized that the surface she rested on was rising and falling with a soft rumbling snore and that except for her bra, her bare skin was pressed close to a bare chest.  With a start, she blinked her eyes open and jerked her head up to the vision of Jarod's handsome face, relaxed in sleep.

His arm tightened around her reflexively in his sleep and she fought against him by putting her hand on his shoulder to push herself up.  The pain in his shoulder as she pushed against it woke Jarod up with a start and an involuntary groan.  Parker rolled off of him into a sitting position and he rolled over on to his side lifting himself on his elbow to look at her in the dim light.  "That was your hurt shoulder," she realized, "I'm sorry."

He nodded understanding that she was apologizing for pushing against him as well as for shooting him in the first place.  "How's your head?" he asked softly reaching up his hurt right arm and brushing his hand gently over her cheek and across her hair on the left side.

"What happened?" she whispered back.

"Lightening struck the tree and the limb fell on you.  I had to get us out of the rain and managed to carry you to this equipment shed," he explained briefly, leaving out all the heroics that had taken place to achieve this apparently simple goal.

She touched her head again and nodded slowly, "It hurts," she said simply.

He shivered since she had pulled the canvas cover off of him when she sat up.  The storm had long since passed and the rain had stopped, leaving behind only a deep cold that made their warm breath wreathe out around them.  "Can we share?" he asked with a gentle pull on the cover.

She nodded slowly and pulled the canvas over both their shoulders as she slid back beside him holding herself up on her elbow to face him.  She became acutely aware of his warm body beside her and realized that they hadn't been this close for years.  She recalled the dream she had when sleeping in his apartment in North Carolina and wondered again if she had actually uncovered a repressed memory.  She leaned in and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply of his scent to see what other memories it jogged.

Jarod felt an intense jolt of erotic attraction for her from her simple action, even though they weren't even touching each other.  Although they talked on the phone regularly and he saw her often at a distance, there were very few times they had actually been in a room together.  Granted she had come close to capturing him once in Florida and again in Atlanta when he was trying to save the boy Davy from becoming another of Raines's experiments.  But this felt more like the time they were caught in a bank robbery and had to work together to save not only themselves, but also the other hostages.  Only this time, there was no one else around.  A mad hope began to form in his mind that he could get through to the real woman that she hid behind her Ice Queen mask.

"Do you remember when my father send me away to boarding school?" she asked unexpectedly.

His brown eyes stared deeply in her blue ones as he nodded, unable to trust himself to speak, afraid he might break the spell that had unlocked his old best friend.

"I don't remember it clearly," she began unwilling to admit she actually remembered two versions.  "I came to say good bye and you…"

"I wouldn't run away with you," he finished, settling in her mind which version to believe.

"I woke up in the Renewal Wing," she said quietly with downcast eyes.

"Renewal?" he asked wonderingly.  "You slapped me in disgust and stormed out saying I was a stupid lab rat," he accused.

"Me?  I woke up remembering that you attacked me, trying to, to…"

"Parker," he interrupted realizing that she was accusing him of rape, "I would never…"  He reached out to pat her and ended up stoking her hair softly where it fell across her shoulder.

The action reinforced her newly acquired memory and she looked up at him with fire in her eyes, "Your memory is wrong, Jarod," she asserted.

"Impossible.  I have a photographic memory," he countered defensively, upset with the anger he saw in her eyes.

"It's not your fault," she explained trying to explain her anger.  "Raines tampered with both of our memories.  He made us fear and distrust each other."

She watched as he closed his eyes tightly and clenched his jaw together in concentration.  "You came to see me in the middle of the night.  You begged me to run away with you.  I told you that we could never get away.  We fell asleep," his voice was unemotional as he recounted the memory.  Then he inhaled deeply and her lightly floral scent jogged his own memory and he involuntarily clutched her shoulder.

His actions sent a thrill through her and she felt a surge of surprise at the strength of her feelings for him.

His expression was angry as he opened his eyes, "Your father came in and found us.  He dragged you away.  A sweeper held me down and Raines injected me with something.  Parker, I never remembered before now!  Why?"

"Because we haven't been close to each other before now, I think.  I had sort of a waking dream when I slept in your bed in Raleigh.  It was the smell on the sheets that made me remember," she said reaching over to stroke the stubble of his beard beginning to show.

At her touch, he jerked back as though shocked.  "Odors can have a powerful link to specific memories," he announced rather analytically.

She laughed lightly and leaned in toward him, "What else do you remember, Jarod?" she asked huskily.

"That you use your femininity like a weapon against me," he replied, surprising even himself with his tone.  He was feeling irrationally claustrophobic and had to fight the urge to push her away.

Her eyes narrowed, and she studied his face, "Is that you talking or are you programmed to run from me?"

He flinched at her words and snapped back, "Are you programmed to chase me?"

They stared at each other with a mixture of emotions each.  Deep down they were attracted to each other, but the years of angry taunts from Parker and sneaky traps from Jarod had eroded their trust.  Anger, fear and pain mingled together to cloud their judgment.  And maybe, just maybe, they were acting on primitive brainwashing from their childhood.

Jarod blinked first and leaned in towards her deciding to throw caution to the wind and make a move on her.  "Run away with me, Parker," he urged.

For a moment she almost accepted, their breath mingled in a haze between them.  They were inches away from sealing their fate with a kiss and changing the direction of their lives forever.

But the enormity of the thought of the Centre chasing after her scared Parker and she was afraid of losing everything she had ever known to spend her life with the man she had been trained to hate for the last twenty years.  She pulled away from him, "I could never leave," she began.

He reacted irrationally.  Instead of cajoling her and helping her face her fears, he reacted jealously like a hurt suitor, "You were ready to leave it all for Thomas, but not me?" he asked bitterly.

The thought of Thomas made Parker wince that she had forgotten him.  She had loved him and his gentle manner.  His unconditional love, even though she had barely revealed her real self to him, had convinced her to try a new life.  But he had been murdered in order to keep her at the Centre.  In a way it was all Jarod's fault, as he had arranged for them to meet in the first place.  If she hadn't met Tommy, he would still be alive.  She pulled away from Jarod and snapped, "It's your fault he was killed!"  Her grief for Thomas brought up her long unresolved grief for her mother and she lashed out irrationally as well, "And it's your father that shot my mother!"

"I can't believe that," Jarod retorted, "My father would never do such a thing!"

"How do you know?  You don't know anything about your parents!  Maybe you were stolen from them, but they sure didn't try very hard to get you back, did they?" she said hurtfully.

Jarod pulled away from her like a fire had sprung up between them.  He threw back the canvas cover exposing them both to the cold so that the chill of the room replaced the warmth they had shared so briefly.  He stepped over her angrily and grabbed his pants from where he had hung them the night before and pulled them on.  They were cold and stiff with the mud but mostly dry.  He pulled on his blood encrusted shirt and stepped into his shoes, completely ignoring his socks on the floor.  His hair had dried sticking up in the back, his mustache and unshaven chin made him look devilish.  His look was full of hurt and anger as he glared back at her looking like a complete madman.

She was suddenly frightened of him as she realized she had stepped over the line.  How had this gotten so out of hand?  She wanted to take it all back.  She wanted to wake up all over again, but it was too late now.  She looked at him with a stricken, apologetic look. 

His anger melted, replaced by sorrow.  "My Miss Parker really is gone.  They took her from me long ago," he said looking forlornly at her.  Then stepping past her again, he opened the door just enough to step out into the cold night and disappeared.

"I'm sorry," she whispered after him, but the moment was lost.  She pulled the cover back over herself against the chill, and curled up in a ball too miserable to even cry.

Jarod stalked back towards the medical center, his thoughts in a turmoil.  What had happened back there.  One moment it had felt just right, like coming home, and then the next, they had been worst enemies.  It was like there was no middle ground for them.  He looked back at the small shed, half tempted to return and try again, but he shook his head.  That was just a romantic dream.  Perhaps his parents had found true happiness with each other because of a winter storm, but it wasn't that easy for him and Parker.  His only option at this time was to continue his quest to find his parents and find that unconditional love that he so craved.

Author's note:  Well, they ran away with me that time.  What can I say?  The muses sang to me.  Imagine this story happening just at the end of the third season, and you know it can't end in a kiss.  Hope you enjoyed it anyway.  We'll see where they take me next time…


	17. A New Day

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Seventeen:  A New Day

Rating: PG

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Dear Readers, I apologize for taking so long.  Thanks to all of you who've emailed and encouraged me to finish.  Alas, my hobby takes a back seat to my family.  Anyway TGISummer!  I've almost got the next chapter done too but thought I'd post this for fun to start.  I think two more chapters ought to wrap this baby up…then on to the next one!

Houston, Texas, Saturday Morning, 5 AM

Jarod slammed a fist into a tree trunk, growling out, "Damn it!"  Turning he looked back in the direction he had just come and stood indecisively.  'How does she do that to me?' he demanded of himself.  

He was usually totally in control of the situations he found himself in.  Sure he would get mad at the evil doers he caught, but part of his mind was always watching that part of him that acted out and released his pent up emotions.  But she always got under his skin, and she always had.  He shouldn't have reacted jealously.  He knew that now.  But at the time he couldn't think straight, and he had precipitated their argument.  He shouldered the blame and cloaked himself with guilt.  He couldn't leave her hurt, cold and alone like that.  He took a step back and then stopped again, shaking his head to himself.  She would not accept his help right now.  Her anger was deep seated and long burning.  He knew it wasn't all directed at him, but he would provide the focus to her anger.  He turned back again and headed toward the medical center where an Emergency Entrance sign glowed in the graying dawn light.  He would get someone else to help her.

*************************

Parker slapped her palm on the concrete floor, using the pain that jolted up through her arm to clear her head.  If Jarod had been there she would have slapped him instead, and then collapsed in his arms for that warm comfort she had felt for such a brief period of time.  She had wanted to talk to him, but when the opportunity had arisen she had blown it.  She had let her temper take control again.  He was always there for her.  She knew she could count on Jarod to help her when it really came down to it, just like he had obviously helped her to this gardening shed after the lightning had caused the tree limb to fall upon her.  But he had a way of always getting under her skin and making her face the real woman that she usually kept hidden.  He knew just how to push her buttons.  Was it possible to both love and hate someone at the same time?

She shivered under the paint cloth she was wrapped in, "Time to blow this Popsicle stand," she muttered to herself.  She pushed herself to a sitting position and peered around the small shed.  Two cheap plastic windows let the wan light of dawn into the shed and she could see her clothes spread out on the shelves to dry.  She tried rising to her feet in her usual swift manner only to find herself swaying dizzily back down to her knees.  Her forgotten head injury throbbed in reminder and she was forced to crawl to the shelves and pull her clothes down.  Parker slowly dressed herself in the clammy, cold clothes and finally crawled back to the paint cloth and wrapped herself up in it again and lay back down in exhaustion.

**************************

Jarod paused for a moment in front of the emergency entrance, using a deliberate breathing pattern to gather his thoughts and prepare himself for pretending.  He surprised himself at how small a tiptoe step it was for him to pull on the persona of the worried boyfriend.  He forced himself not to think about his real relationship with Parker and to act out as if their relationship as children had never changed.  His best friend, he dare not think 'lover', was in desperate need of medical help.

As Jarod stumbled through the double wide glass doors, the young intern, Dr. Josephina Stern, or Josie to her friends, looked up at the sound of the whir of the automatic doors.  If she was expecting the usual sight of uniformed rescue workers quickly pushing a patient strapped to a gurney through the doors, then she was shocked at the slow motion fall Jarod made as he stumbled and slid to his knees looking up at her with pleading eyes.  His hair was wild, standing on end.  His mustache and scraggly beard made him look fierce, and his filthy, blood crusted clothes could have pegged him as an escapee of a horror movie.  Except for his eyes, which arrested the motion of her hand to phone security.  "Help," he croaked.

Josie sprang up from the small desk, not even noticing that she knocked over the coffee cup she had been sipping to get through the last hour of her shift.  Adrenaline always beats caffeine hands down on stimulating the human brain.  She found herself helping him stand up, lifting under his arms and trying to guide him to an exam room set in the side of the hall.  But he resisted her pull and stood solidly rooted, albeit a little wobbly.  "It's all right, I'm here to help you," she tried reassuring him, wondering what had happened to him.

"Not me," he replied weakly, "Must help, Parker."

"Were you in an accident?  Is someone still trapped in the car?" she asked.

He shook his head slightly, "Lightning hit a tree and it fell on her," he took a shuddering breath and tried to stand straighter.  "I'll take you back to the park," he said half turning back to the door.

"Oh, no, you don't.  You're in no condition to go anywhere," she scolded and then called out over her shoulder to the nurse watching from her admissions station, "Tina, call Fred and Manual and tell them their rest break is over.  We need an ambulance sent over to the park ASAP!"

She tried to push him toward an exam room again, but still he stayed rigidly in place, "I'll show them," he insisted.

"You can't go.  It's against regs.  Tell me where to find her.  Trust me, it's our job.  I promise you, we'll rescue your girlfriend," Josie tried to reassure the man she had decided was devoted to his girl.

Jarod felt a jolt as the intern pronounced the word 'girlfriend'.  He quickly pulled himself together to maintain the pretend.  It was very important to him not to see Miss Parker again any time soon.  The anger and hurt he felt at her rejection was too fresh to face her with his usual taunts and banter.  She could never know how important to him she really was.  But he needed this doctor to believe he wanted to see her, so that she would believe him and send an ambulance for Parker.

Josie misinterpreted his tension, and patted his shoulder encouragingly, but her touch on his injured shoulder caused him to cry out in pain.  He almost lost control of himself as the pain rippled down his spine and he gritted his teeth desperately.  The young doctor finally noticed that while most of the blood on his shirt was dried brown, there was a moist, red patch on the right where she had patted him.  "Please, come sit down.  Let me look at you."

But still he shook his head, taking a shuddering breath.  Fortunately, the stalemate was broken as two young men in emergency rescue uniforms came trotting up the hall and looked questioningly at the intern.  "What's up, Doc Stern?" asked the Hispanic looking one.

"Manual, tell him that you'll rescue his girlfriend.  Ask him where she is, reassure him, okay?" she replied as if Jarod wasn't even standing there.

"Hey, amigo, I can help.  Can you tell me how to find her?" Manual asked gently looking into Jarod's pain-filled brown eyes.

Jarod knew he had succeeded and nodded slowly at the man.  "It's not far.  Down this street to the golf course cross street.  I managed to get us into a gardening shed by the road and we fell asleep for a while.  She's still there.  I couldn't carry her…"he trailed off sadly, still lost in the pretend that was too close to his heart.

"Don't worry, buddy, we'll be back with her in no time" said the other man, and the two dashed out to an ambulance parked on the side of the building.

"There," pronounced Dr. Stern, "now I insist you come in here and let me look at your shoulder," and she propelled Jarod into one of the exam rooms.  Jarod docilely allowed her to unbutton his shirt and remove the ruined garment wincing only slightly as it pulled off his right shoulder.  Josie threw the shirt away in the biohazard bin and stood by the sink washing her hands thoroughly, "Tina," she called out to the nurse, "come help me wash this so we can see what we've got here."  The nurse quickly brought betadine solution and gauze pads and gently set to work.  Jarod stared stoically at the light switch on the wall ignoring the pain.  Snapping on a fresh set of latex gloves, Josie leaned over his shoulder and whistled softly, "You pulled out half the stitches on the front, but only a couple on the back."  She moved to stand directly in front of him until he finally looked up at her.  "You were shot," she accused, "What happened?"

Jarod blinked twice, "It was, uh, a hunting accident."

Josie nodded slowly, "You've obviously already been to see a doctor, so I guess I don't need to report this again.  Were you here at the medical center for a check up?"  He nodded, allowing her to make up the story she needed.  "So what got you and your girlfriend out in that big storm?

"We both used to work for the same corporation in Delaware.  I left a couple of years ago.  She came to check on me when she heard I was hurt," Jarod told her.  He had learned that sticking to a version of the truth was always best in insuring a level of sincerity in one's eyes and thus leading others to believe you.  "We had an argument.  She wants me to come back and I don't want to."

Josie studied him a moment longer and then smiled lightly as she accepted his story, "Well, I can't fix relationships but I can mend wounds," she announced.  Then turning towards the nurse, she became all professional, "Tina, go get a double dose of the broad spectrum antibiotic, it looks like he's got an infection started here.  I'll get started with the suture kit."  She opened a cabinet door and pulled out a plastic wrapped syringe then a needle which she attached, smartly tapping the fluid as she depressed the plunger slightly.  "I'm going to give you some local anesthetic first," she told Jarod, "You don't complain much, but I know that must hurt a lot," and she quickly set to work repairing the stitches to his gunshot wound so it would finally heal properly.

*************************

Parker had dozed for a while slowly feeling her own body heat warm the cold clothes.  Distantly she became aware of the sound of a siren that came closer and closer until it died right by her ear.  She heard the sound of hurried footsteps and then the door of the shed flung open to let in more light from the outside.  Without protesting, Parker let them bundle her onto a gurney and whisk her away in an ambulance.  She knew without a doubt that Jarod had sent them and she felt comforted that despite it all, he still cared for her.

In a daze, she felt herself wheeled into the bright emergency room and lifted off the gurney onto an examining table.  She watched through half open eyes, while the medical personal scurried around her.  A young woman with a white doctor's coat leaned over and gently tilted her head to the side to examine it while asking, "Can you talk?  What is your name?"

"M-m-miss Parker," she stuttered in reply feeling very cold and weak.

"Her skin is clammy and cold.  What 's her temp?" demanded the doctor.

Parker felt a thermoscanner pressed to her ear and allowed herself to close her eyes.  She seldom let anyone take control of her, but she felt safe now and allowed herself to give in to the fatigue she had been fighting for the last hour.  From far away she could hear the reply, "89."

"She's going into shock," pronounced the doctor.  "Help me get these cold, wet clothes off of her.  Fred, go get the heated blankets."  The medical personnel sprung into action working to stabilize Parker.

Parker was only dimly aware of the people around her.  It was the voices that had her mesmerized.  There were several of them, and they all clamored for her attention.  She had never heard them so clearly before.  One strong male voice insisted, "Kill.  Fire.  Death.  Power," over and over in a frightening chant that she desperately wanted to ignore but she felt was pulling her down like a whirlpool.  Then a clear, sweet female voice called to her like a life line.  "Come this way.  Fight.  You must fight.  Your work is not yet done.  You must finish my work.  Fight."  Parker took a deep breath and for a brief instant felt all the hands and heard all the real life commotion around her.  Then she focused back on the voices.  One quiet one still called to her, although the others had faded away to a background babble.  "Miss Parker, Miss Parker," a girl's voice called to her.  She half opened her eyes and the moving people around her seemed like the blur of a movie in fast forward compared to the shimmering apparition sitting at the end of her bed.  A pretty young girl with long hair and wearing a nightgown smiled warmly at her, "You helped her.  She helped me.  She will help more like me.  I am glad you helped.  You were like mother.  She wants you to be like her.  I will always be here with you."  Then the young girl slowly evaporated like a mist and the people around Parker seemed to slow down their frantic speed.  Parker stretched a hand out toward the end of the bed, "Faith," she called out weakly.  The smiling girl faded at last like a Cheshire cat.

The reality of the room came back to Parker in a rush as the antiseptic smell and clatter of the room assailed her senses.  "Vitals are stabilized, doctor," the nurse announced.

The warm touch of a human hand as it patted hers and lowered it to the bed focused Parkers attention on the doctor as she leaned over to look into Parker's clear blue eyes, "You had us worried there for awhile.  Your boyfriend will be happy to see you.  Shall I go get him?"

"Boyfriend?" echoed Parker stupidly.

"I just finished repairing his stitches before they brought you in.  He's in the room right next door.  I'll go get him," and before Parker could assent or protest, Dr. Stern stepped quickly around the corner.

"Tina, where did the patient go?" called out the doctor.

Parker smiled to herself.  She knew Jarod was long gone.  As soon as they had brought her in, she was sure, he had run away again.  Somehow she didn't mind.  She was still basking in the warm glow from Faith and the feeling of having helped someone.  Is this why Jarod is always helping people, she wondered.  She had learned many things about him and herself this last week, and she was still confused exactly where her relationship stood with him.  The word 'boyfriend' lingered in her mind like a forbidden fruit.  But at least she felt they had regained that friendship that had been stolen from them so long ago.  It would be interesting to see how he behaved at their next meeting.  Until then, she would still play the game.

Dr. Josie Stern came back in the room looking confused, "I'm sorry, Miss Parker, he seems to have wandered off.  He was quite worried about you though.  I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"No, he's gone.  It's alright.  I'll pay for his bill," Parker reassured the doctor.

"Bill?  I'm not worried about fees.  Don't you want to see him?" the doctor asked in astonishment.

"It's not about what I want," Parker replied cryptically.  "Can I leave now?"

"No!  We need to keep you for observation.  You almost went into shock.  Besides, we still need to put stitches in the gash on her head.  I'm at the end of my shift.  The next doctor has training in plastic surgery and he will do a better job.  Maybe you can go around noon," explained the doctor.

"My head does still hurt," agreed Parker.  "Please, would you call for Mr. Broots at the Marriott Hotel to let him know where I am and to come get me?" Parker asked quietly.

Dr. Stern nodded her head, "We'll take good care of you, Miss Parker."  Then the doctor 

pressed a needle into Parker's arm and the throbbing of her head immediately began to subside.

*************************

Houston, Texas, Saturday Morning, 9:30 AM

Emily walked briskly from the parking garage to the Clinical Research building.  She looked anxiously around her, hoping to see her cousin turning a corner to join her.  She had reluctantly let him leave the day before to help Dr. White and her daughter Amanda, and she had worried all night long, imagining all sorts of events, each scenario more horrific than the last.  The huge thunderstorm had only aided her imagination, and she was more anxious to know that the man she had rescued out of pity only a few days ago was alright, than to find out for certain if they were relatives.  She was so concentrated on spying Jarod in the clothes that he had been dressed in the day before, that she barely gave a second glance at a dark haired man in green surgical scrubs walking towards her.  He startled her by grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him, and she pulled away in a moment of fear until she really looked at his eyes and recognized the clean shaven man.  "Jarod!" she exclaimed and reversed pull to draw him into a relieved hug, murmuring, "You're okay.  I was so worried.  I wasn't expecting you to look so different."  She kept an arm around his waist as they walked along the sidewalk.  "Evelyn White called me briefly last night to say she and her daughter were alright and to thank you again.  But she said you took off at a run when Miss Parker came in and found you with them.  Then with that storm last night too…I was so worried," she repeated.

"Oh, Miss Parker didn't really want to catch me last night.  Once I knew that Dr. White and her daughter were alright, I knew it was time to leave.  I made the dramatic exit for Parker's sake.  Although, I did get caught out in the storm last night, I never was really in danger.  This morning I made use of a doctor's changing room to get cleaned up," Jarod answered leaving out all the other details of his encounter with Parker.

"Well, she promised to leave instructions at the lab for them to help us to finish our analysis this morning, but she won't be joining us since she wants to visit with her daughter more."

"That's good," Jarod said wistfully, "I'm glad they reunited their family."

"Hey," Emily said giving him a nudge, "You're going to be finding your family this morning, or at least some of us," she declared confidently and she smiled up at him.  

He stopped walking to look back at her.  The clear morning sun glinted off the highlights in her red hair, her fresh washed face gave her an honest look and her eyes sparkled intelligently.  Suddenly, the whole day was fresh and new.  He looked up and around at the clear rain washed sky, the windows of the buildings around them winking in the morning sun, and heard the sounds of birds in the trees and murmuring voices of the people around them walking with the hope of healing in their hearts.  The machinations of the Centre, the confusion he felt about his relationship with Parker and the physical pain he had endured seemed to have all been washed away during the storm and dissolved into the new morning.  Slowly a big grin grew on his face until his eyes sparkled back into Emily's eyes.  "I don't know if you'll want me for a cousin," he joked.

"If you keep smiling like that, I do.  You really should smile like that more often," she replied in a joking tone as she pulled him back down the sidewalk, "You'd never keep all the ladies away!"

More on the way, I promise.  It was getting too long so I decided to split it into another chapter and I'm almost done!  'Til next time…


	18. Cheers With A Cherry On Top

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Eighteen:  Cheers with Cherries on Top

Rating: PG

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

Houston, Texas, Saturday Afternoon, 3:30 PM

"Mom, we're home," called Emily as she opened the door to her small house.

"Thank god, the baby has been crying for a half hour now.  He drank both those bottles you left for me to use, but I think he's still hungry," her relieved mother said as she hurried to meet them.  "Here," she thrust the wailing child at her daughter, "I'm afraid there are times when Grandma just won't do."

Emily cuddled the child and murmured soothingly, "It's alright, little buddy, come on, Mama will change you and nurse you and you'll be fine."  She stepped into the house toward the backroom and added over her shoulder to her mother, "I'll let Cousin Jarod fill you in with all the details."

Mary looked over at the tall, handsome young man that had followed her daughter in through the door expectantly.  He looked totally different from the man she had met yesterday.  Previously, Emily had cut his hair and beard to make him resemble her great uncle.  Now with a clean shaven face and his hair slightly spiked in front, he looked thoroughly modern.  She nodded toward a file folder in his hands, "Are those the results?"

Jarod smiled a little shyly at her, "Yes.  We concluded over a 95% confidence level."

Mary walked up closer to him and touched his cheek softly, "I can see your father's eyes and your mother's chin already."  She saw his eyes well with tears as his face reflected the deep emotions he was feeling, and she gathered him in a big hug.

Jarod felt stiff at first as he accepted her arms around her, but as he returned the hug, entwining his arms around her waist, he lowered his head to her shoulder and closed his eyes as he buried his head in her hair.  'This is how my mother would feel,' he thought to himself.  'This is how her sister feels.  This is how MY aunt feels,' and at the word 'aunt' a fierce joy filled him so that he hugged her tightly, picking her up off her feet and swinging her once around the room.

Mary laughed out loud at his exuberance and as he set her back down on her feet lightly he grinned like a boy at Christmas.  "Not that I need any proof, mind you, but why don't you show me the results of all those blood tests you made us go through."  She nodded toward the couch and they sat down comfortably right next to each other.

Jarod opened the file folder and spread out a set of x-ray films across both their laps.  "We destroyed all the remaining samples and the original hybridization filters.  All that remains are these films and I'm going to have Emily destroy these too, so there can be no chance of any of this getting in the wrong hands," he said solemnly.

Mary picked one of the films up.  It was mostly a clear gray with black lines stacked neatly in columns that sometimes lined up with each other.  "I've seen these kind of things on TV and such, and I know it has to do with mapping our DNA, but what exactly am I looking at?" she asked curiously.

Jarod blinked in surprise.  Some things he had learned so long ago, it was hard to remember that most people didn't know them.  Emily had been so well trained, he hadn't really stopped to consider that her mother didn't know molecular biology.  He struggled to explain the data in a way that she could understand.  Unconsciously, he took on a light version of Sydney's accent as he took on the role of teacher.  "You're right.  You are looking at a form of DNA mapping.  You see these sharp lines on this side?"

Mary nodded and traced a finger on the left side at a set of lines that were pretty evenly spaced but didn't particularly line up with any of the other lines on the film, "You mean these?"

"Those are size markers that are composed of pieces of DNA with exactly known lengths.  You see the process that separates DNA makes the smaller pieces move more quickly and so go farther down.  This bottom marker represents 0.35 kilobases, this one 0.6, this one 1.2 and so on," he traced his finger up the set of lines.  "These other columns contain DNA from each of us," he pointed to each in turn from left to right across the film, "Me, you, Emily, her daughter, and the baby, and these last two are standards 1 and 2."

"What are standards?" she asked.

"Well, DNA is really a long molecule, so in order to separate it, we have to break it into smaller pieces.  We can't do it physically.  We use enzymes that recognize specific sequences in the DNA and cause it to separate at those specific places.  Although we are all unique in our complete genetic makeup, we share a lot of similarities, especially with family members.  It turns out that there are only a few sets of different genes for any one protein that our bodies make.  These different genes break into different sizes.  The most common of these gene versions is well known, as well as the percentage of occurrence in the general population.  If you share the same version of the gene your chances of being related go up.  Typically, you look at a battery of standards to compare against.  One match is not very conclusive, but the more matches you have, the more your odds of being closely related go up," Jarod explained.

Mary studied the film carefully, "So you, me and Emily all match standard 2, right?"  Jarod nodded, pleased at how quickly she picked up the concept.  "But why do my grandchildren have two faint bands?  They look like they match standard 1 too."

"Well, remember that you inherit DNA from both your mother and your father?  You could have two copies of the same gene like we do, or one copy of each like the kids.  We didn't have their father's blood sample, but I'm sure he would match standard 1 too.  They got one version of the gene from their mother and the other from their father."

Mary picked up another of the films and held it up to the light next to the first.  The second set had bands that were higher up on the film, "These are longer pieces than the first ones, right?"

"Yes," Jarod acknowledged.

"But I see the same kind of pattern.  Emily, you and I all match!"

"Congratulations, you're a geneticist," chuckled Jarod.  He leaned back on the couch happily as his aunt picked up the various films and studied each one in turn.  He had been pleased that she had accepted him so readily as part of the family before, but it was important to him that she knew for certain.  He was going to ask her to do something very important, and he hoped that her love for her family and desire to protect them would make her follow through.

"Why is this one so messy?" she asked holding up the last film.  Indeed, it was speckled all over and the columns had a general haze up and down with the bands barely standing out against the background.  She scooted over to the table lamp to hold it up to the shade to get more light to shine through it.  In Jarod's column there were five bands.  She and Emily matched the lower three.  Her granddaughter Kimie matched the two lower bands, and the baby Will only matched one middle sized band.

"That's what I need to talk to you about," Jarod began.  "How much did Emily tell you about where I was raised?"

"Not much actually, I'm afraid the kids wore me out and I went to bed early last night.  I thought you said it would be best if I didn't know."

"Well, now it's best if you do.  The Centre is an evil place.  They kidnapped me, they kept me prisoner, they even tortured me at times.  True I was taught almost every subject there is, but it was to use me like a human computer.  I am a Pretender.  I can think like, act like, feel like anyone.  They used me to solve crimes, and they used me to think up scenarios that they corrupted into crimes," he confessed.

Mary stared at him in horror.  "And you escaped a couple years ago?  Just before your Dad contacted me, I'd guess."

"They're still after me.  I was shot just last week," he gestured to his shoulder.  "If Emily hadn't helped me, I would be very sick from an infection by now."  Jarod pointed to the temporarily forgotten film in her hands.  "That shows the pretender genes.  It's messier because I had to make the probe from my own blood and it wasn't completely purified."

"There's a gene to make you a, what, a pretender?" asked Mary.

"Well, not really.  I suspect it is a gene that allows the brain cells to make many more connections than normally.  I think it gives me the ability to about the same problem in many different ways but all at the same time.  I guess you could think about it like the difference between having ten computers working on the same problem compared to just one.  They obviously get to the answer sooner.  You share some of those genes with me, see?" and he pointed to the three bands that lined up together.

"But why are mine so faint compared to yours?"

"Because I have two copies and you have only one, just like the kids shared one gene from their mom and one from their dad before," he explained.

"And you got two copies from your parents, because," she faltered a moment, "because they were cousins."

"Exactly," he confirmed and they locked eyes with each other with understanding.

"You're afraid for Emily and her children because they have some of these genes too," she said quietly.

"You are very perceptive," he complimented her, "I think your latent pretender abilities are showing."

Mary shook her head lightly, "No, my sister was always brighter and quicker than me.  But when Dad got so mad at her, I made a point of being average.  I may have had potential, but it was never developed," she admitted.  "But the kids only have a few of the bands, doesn't that mean they have less ability?"

"Not necessarily, as you just pointed out, training has a lot to do with it.  Besides, it's not like a lot of researchers have studied these genes.  We really don't know which part of the gene is important for the pretender ability.  It could be only one part that is important or it could be the cluster.  This is a big secret for the Centre.  The point is that if they knew about the children's potential, they would take them to use as pretenders or use them just as breeding stock."

"What?!" demanded Mary.  "They're human beings, not animals."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you:  To the Centre they would be just like animals to train and to control," replied Jarod earnestly.  "You need to understand that this is a real threat, so you'll agree to what I'm asking you to do."

Mary stared at him, "Which is?"

"Well, first of all you have to agree to help protect Emily and her kids.  That means helping Emily to keep their abilities hidden.  Never let them be put into gifted and talented programs.  The Centre keeps an eye on those looking for people with potential pretender talents."

"That's easy, of course I'll do that.  What else?" she asked slowly with dawning realization.

"You have to finish what your father had already begun.  Completely disown your sister," he looked at her sadly, "and me."

"No, Jarod," she replied softly taking his hand in hers, "but we just found you."

At that moment, Emily walked back into the room carrying baby Will and leading little Kimie by the hand, "Everyone's ready for the celebra-…" she stopped mid-word at their somber faces.  "What's wrong?" she demanded.

"Dey need I-cream, Mama," announced little Kimie.

Jarod looked over at the little girl and a slow grin spread across his face, "Yes, yes we do, Kimie.  What flavor is the best?" he asked and he scooped her up and starting walking to the kitchen.

Emily slowly asked, "Mom?"

Mary looked up at her daughter and the sweet, innocent baby in her arms.  She would never let what happened to her sister, happen to her daughter.  Nor what happened to Jarod, happen to her grandson.  "We have to let Jarod go," she said, "completely.  We have to pretend that we never met him.  That we don't even know he exists.  The last few days never happened," she said sternly.

Emily started to get angry.  She had enjoyed talking to Jarod.  She had imagined him coming back to visit from time to time, like ordinary relatives do.  She suddenly realized all the occasions when she would miss him the most—the baby's first birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduations, weddings—a whole host of visions swept through her mind.  "That's not fair!" she exclaimed.

"To you or Jarod?" her mother asked perceptively.

Emily immediately deflated into sorrow, "It was his idea wasn't it?"

"He wants to protect you and the children," explained her mother, "You know all the reasons too, don't you?"

Emily nodded glumly and looked down at the baby in her arms who gave her a contented, trusting smile.  She did know the reasons.  They had talked some on the drive home, but now she remembered the reserved feeling he had given off.  He had been making his decision on that drive home.  She had just bubbled on about her delight at knowing for sure that he belonged to their family, and how much fun they could have visiting.  If anything she must have made him feel worse and not welcome like she had intended to.  She had to apologize.

Moving back toward the kitchen she paused in the doorway at the sight of her daughter sitting on the counter.  This was something she would never have done, and had to bite her tongue to keep from scolding him just when she wanted to apologize.  Little Kimie was watching with rapt attention as Jarod added yet another scoop of ice cream to an already heaping bowlful as he recited Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors from memory in an exuberant voice, "   Brownie, Cherry Garcia, Chubby Hubby, Chunky Monkey, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Phisch Food, Everything But the, Fudge Central, Half Baked, Karmael Sutra, Makin' Whoopee…"

"Jarod!" Emily interrupted.

Jarod stopped guiltily and looked over at her with a sheepish grin, "I've tried 573 flavors of ice cream, so far.  I was telling her some of my favorites.  You know an ice cream cone is just about the perfect food," he added seriously.

"Oh, Jarod," she said with a crack in her voice as she realized how much she would miss him.  Quickly, she crossed over to his side and gave him a hug pressing the baby between them.

"It's for the best," he whispered.

"Willy Sandwich.  Willy Sandwich.  I want a sandwich hug too!" piped up Kimie.

The two pulled apart chuckling through the tears.  "I thought you wanted ice cream," rumbled Jarod as he easily grabbed the little girl with his good left arm and added her to the huddle.

"Um-hum," the little girl nodded in agreement, "wid' cherries on top!"

"Well, let Mommy finish making that huge sundae.  You hop down so Cousin Jarod can hold Will okay?" said Emily as Jarod let the little girl slip down out of his arms and accepted the baby instead.  Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out chocolate syrup and a jar of maraschino cherries, festooned the mound of ice cream and pulled out four spoons from the drawer.  "When are you leaving?" she asked Jarod as she carried it out to the living room with Kimie skipping along.

"I thought I'd catch a ride with your mother, and then move on from there," he replied trailing behind.  "I'm still hoping my father will contact her over the personal ad in the newspaper."

"Oh, my, I'd almost forgotten about that," said Mary as reached out for her grandson and sank down on the couch with him.  Jarod deftly grabbed a spoon and huge scoop of ice cream as he sat down next to her.  Emily knelt by her daughter and Kimie unabashedly sat on the coffee table right next to the bowl of ice cream digging in to the treat.

Mary grabbed a spoonful as well and held it out like you would a glass to toast, "To finding family, if even for a short visit."

Emily took a spoonful as well and touched to her mother's, as Jarod refilled his own spoon and completed the triangle.  "Maybe in a few years, the Centre will no longer be interested in you," she said hopefully.

"Maybe," Jarod agreed slowly and a crafty glint came into his eyes that slightly frightened Emily, but was quickly washed away by his laugh as Kimie tried to join the musketeer pose and her cherry slid down her arm.

As they enjoyed the ice cream, even feeding the baby some, Jarod tried to memorize every sight, sound and smell so he could relive this simple family moment again and again.  He had always been so focused on just finding his family, he had never considered what would happen afterward.  He was still determined to find his father, and his mother and sister, but he didn't plan to live as fugitive all his life, and he didn't want them to either.  Neither did he want his new found extended family to live in fear of being discovered and hurt by the Centre.  No, he wouldn't let that happen.  In addition, to helping others he was going to start helping himself and that would take a lot of planning.  It would take years to bring down the Centre, but it was now his ultimate goal even beyond finding his family.

THE END

Okay, just a little Epilog to wrap up those loose ends.  Hope this wasn't too technical…I used to do that kind of research BC (before children).  Thanks ever so much for the kind reviews!


	19. EpilogConversations

Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Nineteen:  Epilog--Conversations

Rating: PG

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers:  Donoterase, parts 1 and 2, well, actually the whole series!

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

This is it.  The absolute end.  Just tidying up a few loose ends.  I've been thinking of a new story for several months now but didn't want to even start for fear I'd never finish this one.  Honestly, I always imagined this one as an episode in the middle of the series.  I've decided it belongs just before the Donoterase trilogy at the end of season 3.  Anyway, enjoy.  Thanks again for all your support!  

I've decided to try a new style for this epilog and just write the paragraphs of phone dialog only.  You'll know who is talking.  

***********************

Tuesday Morning, 2:00 AM

What.

Will you have a bad scar?

No, actually the ER doc was pretty good.  How's your arm.

It's better.  I…

…

…(pause)

…

I wanted to tell/ I wanted to say

You first.

No, you first.

…

…(crackle)

…

You called me.  What do you want already?

You were magnificent when you defended Amanda and Dr. White against Raines and Lyle.

You where there!

Just keeping an eye on things.  So what was on that disc Raines took from you?

I wish I knew.  Do you?

Judging from the timing when Dr. White, or as she was originally known as Nurse Black first left the Centre, I'd guess it was about your…

…my mother.

…

…(static)

…

Thanks for helping Amanda find her mom.

Yeah, well, she was a nice kid and didn't deserve having the Centre mess up her life.

You mean like ours?

…

…(sigh)

…

Well, I wanted to say, thanks for rescuing me in the park.

It's the least I could do for a friend.

Friend?

I know you must have found my computer.  I meant what I said.  Always.

Jarod, I… 

…

…(exhale)

…

…we don't have that option.  But if you hurry, you can still clean up your apartment.  I left everything there when Amanda and I flew to Houston.  I'll have to send a clean up crew at the end of the week to justify all my time away last week.

Don't get so distant and professional on me.

Humph!  Try to do someone a favor…

Will you just stop being the Chairman's daughter for a second?  I liked you better in the gardening shed when you had a concussion.

I'll bet you did!

Parker, please.

…

…(sniff)

…

Why'd you run from me?  I just wanted to talk to you.

Run?  Maybe you're right.  Maybe I'm conditioned to, but talk to me now.  Parker, the Centre isn't going to be in power forever.  Every day is a new day.  We could live our lives in a different way.

…

…

…

Parker?  Are you there?

It's not just about us.  There are other people and other issues that complicate everything.  Besides, the Centre's spider-like arms ensnare everything and whirlpool it into this hell hole!

You're too pessimistic.

Well, you're too damn optimistic!

We could meet in the middle.

What do you expect?  That I should fall in your arms with a kiss and because I've found Mr. Right, ride off in the sunset with you?

…

…(gasp)

…

What did you say?  Mr. Wright?

Honestly, Jarod, your naivete' gets to be annoying sometimes.

You knew…

What?

…all this time…

What?

…(click)

Jarod?  Jarod?  Damn!  I hate it when he hangs up on me like that!

***********************

Sunday Afternoon, 4 PM

Hello.

Mary?

Charles?  Is that you?

Yes.  I just got relayed your message.  Do you have any news?

I met him.  He's a fine young man, Charles.  You'd be proud.

Is he there?  Can I talk to him?

No, he left last Tuesday.  I woke up and he was gone.  Left me a note.  We kind of expected you to call last Sunday.

I've been following some interesting leads.  How did he find you?

Actually, it was totally by accident.  He bumped into my Emily in Houston and she took him in.  She was the one who made the connection actually.  You wouldn't believe how much he looks like your father!

Really?  I wish I could go see him right away.

Why don't you?  He's been looking for you for the last three years.

I have to meet a friend first.  He's expecting me and has some important information to pass along.  How do I find Jarod?

He left me with a note that gave an email address.  He said it would forward any messages on to him.  I'm not supposed to use it all, unless an emergency arises.

(Now boarding Alaskan Airlines Flight 1323 to Barrow)  Look, my flight is about to take off.  What's the address?

JRWright@aol.com

He knows his real name?

He does now.  I have to confess I told him a lot of stories about you and Margaret on the drive up here.  (chuckle) He couldn't get enough.

I wish I could have been there.  I'll find him soon.  Thanks for everything, Mary.  You remember what I said before?.  Be careful.  Lie low.

That's what Jarod said too.

(Last call for Flight 1323 to Barrow)  I'm sorry, Mary, I really have to go.  Take care.

You too.  Goodbye.

Well, dear readers, thanks again for your words of encouragement.  I shall endeavor to rustle up a new story for you.  So long, for now!


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